HP Envy - HP Logo and Spinning Dots After Power Outage

[buster921]

We had an overnight power outage and our PC shut down as a result. It is connected to a surge suppressor, so I don't think the outage damaged the power supply. When I attempted to restart the machine, the monitor showed only the HP logo and spinning dots and nothing else.

This went on for over an hour, so I shut it off, and detached the power cord and everything else connected to it except the monitor, wired keyboard and mouse. I then pressed the start button for 10 seconds and plugged the power cord back in and tried to start the PC. No joy, so I switched it off again.

I then repeatedly started the machine and switched it off when the spinning dots appeared. After a couple of these attempts, the HP logo appeared on the monitor with the message, "Preparing Automatic Repair". However, after a few minutes, the Preparing Automatic Repair message was replaced by the spinning circle of dots! No other messages have appeared, and there is no indication that anything is being repaired!

Questions:

Should I leave the PC powered on and assume the self-repair is being performed?
If the self-repair is underway, approximately how long should the self-repair take?

How can I determine that the self-repair actually is underway?

If the self-repair did not start for some reason, what other steps should I take now?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Grzwacz]

Hi,

Good call using a surge protector. The hardware should be okay if this device worked.

I recommend a UPS to provide better protection to both hardware and Windows' system files. A UPS will gracefully shut down the PC when a power failure occurs.

A Windows repair should not take forever. I can't give you a specific time frame on how long it should take. Windows repair does not have a reliable track record. A corrupted boot manager can be a nightmare to fix.

Create W10 installation media using this (Link). Boot to this. Try a repair using this media.

You may have to connect the system HDD to a different PC to back up data. You may have to reinstall Windows after backing up data.

Seriously think about creating system images using baked in Windows Backup and Restore or check third party software options. A good system image can be restored quickly with data loss limited to the date the system image was created.

I use Macrium Reflect free (Link).

Regards

[buster921]

Thank you for your suggestions. I have 2 questions in light of them.

1. Won't I need to have access to another PC in order to download windows 10 iso to a flash drive?

2. Won't I need to backup all of the data files on the target PC before installing the new windows copy because it will overwrite my hard drive and erase my data?