My Windows 8.1 is stuck in an automatic repair loop, how can I fix this?

Anonymous
2014-01-02T16:49:35+00:00

my laptop will not boot at all, when I turn it on the screen shows 'preparing automatic repair' then 'diagnosing your PC'. After this, the screen shows 'your PC did not start correctly' and it doesn't work when I restart it so I selected advanced options. After this, if I click continue the repair screen appears again and I am redirected back to the same page. I can't access my desktop at all and an administrator hasn't been set on my laptop, so after clicking troubleshoot I can't refresh or reset my PC.After this I clicked on advanced settings and I cannot choose system restore, command prompt, system image recovery or startup repair because they either don't work or need an administrator and I haven't set one as I mentioned before. My last resort was startup settings which requires restarting the PC. 9 options are to choose from and I tried almost all and it won't boot up in safe mode. Help!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-04-02T19:25:00+00:00

I've inserted the System Recovery disc 1 that came with the computer. No change.

Usually that means that that device is not higher than the hard drive in the boot device order.  You would probably need to get into your BIOS screen to change that.  See your User Guide or contact HP for more information.  Post your product id (e.g. what details you need to use HP's site to find your particular documentation and downloads but not your serial number) if you need someone to help interpret your user documentation.  In W7 HP had a nice tool that gave me those details.  I never found anything analogous from W8, except in bits and pieces.

HTH

Robert Aldwinckle


Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

156 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-01-12T00:31:46+00:00

    I used Linux and carefully  made a partition of unused space on the Hard drive  After I finally managed to  reset the "dirty bit" hex code that was on the drive  Then  I installed    Grub2 bootloader and  I made  chain loader  to boot Windows from there and it is Still working fine,

    One Caveat though,  If I shut it down normally, upon restart it erases my work and goes back into the endless  repair loop that will never complete!

    So after that happened once  and I got it booting  again  using my  Grub 2 hack ,  I made a  shortcut and added it to the panel  or rather  Taskbar in  Windows™  nomenclature,    and the shortcut I made  is: " shutdown /s /t 0 "

     so I click that and  poof!  it goes  off  :)

      I was very nervous the first few times that I ran updates though after I had shut it down in that manner  but amazingly they succeeded and all has  been well!

    I know this was a very unorthodox hackish way to  fix it but I felt like it was challenging me and it made me rather upset after  a few days of  nonproductive  BS.

    I apologize for just now getting back to this thread.

    Stan Williams

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-01-12T00:56:20+00:00

    No one was ever able to help me with this same issue , so i  managed to get mine working using Linux, a long and complicated and hackish process  wouldn't want anyone to have to do. I only did it because I was  Not going to give up at the time lol.

    IF you haven't resolved this issue yet and No one helps or finds asolution,

    I would suggest getting a Windows repair disk or downloading the ISO from Microsoft and making your own and trying to repair it that way.

    Or at least i think will could work if all else fails you could reinstall Windows  if repair does not work.  maybe you could get someone to help get your files off the drive, you can mount the hard drive in another PC and after you  do that,  then put  the hard drive back in your PC before the Windows install erased your files IF you have files that are  very valuable to you.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2017-01-12T01:29:03+00:00

    How do you disable these additions

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-18T21:02:49+00:00

    Entering these prompts will not damage or remove anybody of my files, correct? I use my PC for work, and have a lot of word/excel... etc on there. Thanks! Just wanted to double check before I entered the prompts in.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments