HP Laptop not booting

[killjoy1]

My HP Laptop, windows 10, is not booting.

When I switch on I just get the Spinning wheel.

If I press the F8 during the boot I get the message "Preparing Automatic Recovery" for about 10 min then reverts to the spinning wheel.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@killjoy1 

Unfortunately, this message nearly always means that a recent Windows Update failed and Microsoft then tried to recover from that, but that failed, so it's trying over and over again -- and will never succeed because Windows Update got corrupted in the process. Unfortunately, this is NOT a new issue with Win10 Windows Updates.

This problem is very difficult, if not impossible to fix -- from the standpoint of making repairs and leaving your stuff intact. Some steps for trying this are listed below, but they are very hard to do and if they do not work, you are faced with doing a complete Windows reinstallation to get your PC back working again.

And if that is the case, you need to come back here and tell us what failed so we can provide instructions for things you can to do retrieve some data from your drive before you do a complete reinstallation.
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First thing you need to do is see if you can restart in Safe mode -- by doing these steps: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2304-boot-into-safe-mode-windows-10-a.html

If you don't know how to start using Advanced Startup Options, then read this: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2294-boot-advanced-startup-options-windows-10-a.html

Then, follow these steps to reset Windows Update: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/24742-reset-windows-update-windows-10-a.html

If these work, when you finally reboot, you should then be able to login to a working Windows desktop.

If these don't work, then report that back here as we will then have to provide you information on reinstalling Windows.

[killjoy1]

Thanks for the help, just went back to it to try although I was sure I wouldn't be able to  get into Safe Mode.

However this time it just booted up normally, this raises 2 more questions:

1. Do I know the windows error has been corrected?

2. Can I make a USB recovery stick in case this happens again?