HP Laptop Stuck in "Preparing Auto Repair" Loop

[PrinceTrase]

Good Morning, HP community!

Recently, my nephew had brought to my attention that his laptop won't boot up correctly.  He said it would constantly loop with a message "Preparing Automatic Repair".  I checked and low and behold, that's what happening.  I quickly restarted the laptop and pressed ESC to run the HP Diagnostic test.  I ran a full test and passed each one, including the Hard Drive Smart Check and Hard Drive Short DST Check.

Strangely, I can not access the System Recovery page when I press F11, it goes straight back to the PAR loop.  

Unfortunately, my nephew is out of his warranty, but I still would like to request any suggestions on what I can do to restore his laptop before spending any money.

Thank you!

[iomare · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can download the media creation tool from Microsoft on different PC, run and create a bootable drive with Windows 10 on it. Make sure you create it with the 64-bit system.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can then boot from this drive (F9 at boot to choose the drive as boot device)- You might need to disable fastboot and secure boot in BIOS.

Choose the language and in the install Windows click on Repair this PC in lower left corner. Now you can try to repair startup in advanced options and maybe restore if you have a restore point.

You will also be able to use the Command Prompt (you can this way transfer any personal files from the internal drive to an external drive using command such as xcopy if the PC no longer boots).

https://www.lifewire.com/xcopy-command-2618103

If this fails you can use the pendrive to perform a clean install of Windows 10. It will automatically activate once installed and connected to internet.

After installing let it completely update and find all or most of the drivers for your sytem. You can follow this process by going into settings > security and update > cick on Verify for updates (you might need to reboot a couple of times).

If there are any missing drivers (you can check in device manager) you can find them in the support page for your model:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-17-x000-notebook-pc-series-touch/10862309/model/...

Hope it helps,

David

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[PrinceTrase]

Thank you for the help, Iomare. Creating the media tool did not take long, although it failed a few times. I plugged it in and was able to install Windows 10 on an open partition.

I'm happy, my nephew is happy. Thanks again!

[s_gw]

@iomare

Sorry to butt in here but I'm desperate! 

I have tried to use F11 to enable my disc repair but am stuck in a "Preparing disc repair", etc etc and although I have a set of HP Recovery discs I cannot persuade a boot from the cd drive.

Could you please help ?  Many thanks.

[pandaboi]

Thank you so much, this worked!