HP 15 Laptop with Windows 10 Stuck in “Preparing Automatic Repair” Loop

[Turgeon]

I have an HP 15 laptop with Windows 10 that is stuck in “Preparing Automatic Repair” Loop.  It failed the Hard Drive Short DST Check with Failure ID MC2PVX-7G3C0U-MFPV6K-60WV03 the last time I ran diagnostics.  I have tried to force a hard reset by removing the battery, pressing various keys when restarting, etc.  No matter what I do it continues to get stuck in the “Preparing Automatic Repair” Loop.

This problem began after the laptop was left powered on overnight.  Perhaps it is the result of an automatic Windows 10 Update.  The laptop had issued a message about a file being corrupted a few days before this problem began.  Even though the laptop appeared to be functioning, it was always slow to boot up before this problem occurred. 

I am thinking of trying to boot up the laptop with an external EFI file.  However, I am not able to create this file myself since I don’t have anther working laptop available.  It would be nice to know if I have a very high likelihood of success before I pursue acquiring an external EFI boot disk.

Any assistance with this problem would be much appreciated.

[BeemerBiker]

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@Turgeon wrote:

I have an HP 15 laptop with Windows 10 that is stuck in “Preparing Automatic Repair” Loop.  It failed the Hard Drive Short DST Check

The drive is bad and needs to be replaced.  Anything other than a repair may erase your important files.

If the drive overheated possibly a few sectors may be bad and data could be recovered.  Hard drives are susceptible to overheating.  

Please provide the Product ID or Model name for better assistance. Preferably the full product ID including the characters after the # symbol.

[Turgeon]

Thanks for your quick response.  The Product ID of my laptop is J9H11UA#ABA.

Based on your response I am not sure it makes sense to repair this laptop since it is over ten years old.  Do you know how much a new drive would cost?  Could the hard drive be replaced with an SSD?

Thanks again! 

[BeemerBiker]

Unfortunately, you do not have cloud recovery

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@Turgeon wrote:

Thanks for your quick response.  The Product ID of my laptop is J9H11UA#ABA.

Based on your response I am not sure it makes sense to repair this laptop since it is over ten years old.

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I have Windows 11 running on 16 year old systems.  As long as it can run 10 it can run 11

I believe you have  750GB 5400RPM hard drive

I recommend WD blue 1TB SSD  This post by Paul explains how to put win11 using the rufus trick

Otherwise create a USB win10 install from here using the "installation media".  Be sure to select home or pro. If you download from a pro system windows will think the target is pro so look at the options

If you need to recover your files then you need a USB adapter.  This one only works if you have a USB3 port.  Do not use USB2 as it only supplies 0.5 amp max.

Get your windows drivers here

[Turgeon]

Thanks again BeemerBiker for your quick response!

Do you think my processor, AMD A8-6410 APU with Radeon R5 Graphics, 2000 MHz, is capable of running Windows 11?  My laptop came with Windows 8 loaded.  After I upgraded to Windows 10 my laptop took much longer to boot up.

Thanks again for your help! 

[BeemerBiker · Accepted solution]

Do you think my processor, AMD A8-6410 APU with Radeon R5 Graphics, 2000 MHz, is capable of running Windows 11?  My laptop came with Windows 8 loaded.  After I upgraded to Windows 10 my laptop took much longer to boot up.

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Windows 8.1 is actually good.  Possibly, with a clean install of 10 there would not have been as much slowdown.

Win11 needs 4gb minimum and 8gb is good. 

If you only have 4gb try Ubuntu Desktop.  It can be run from a USB for testing and if you like it then istall on a drive.

If you have already recovered all important files from your HDD then you can try "fixing" it.  Some disk errors can be fixed by a low level format that writes to each sector.  I have used Seagate SeaTools and also WesternDigital's Lifeguard. They need to be able to boot from a USB. Possibly one of these may work but I have not tried them.

I can make some recommendations of you need to get data from the defective disk.

[Turgeon]

Thanks again for your help!

Fortunately I have 8gb.

I am in the process of repairing an older laptop that I have with USB 2.0 ports and Windows 7 loaded.  I am hopeful that I can get it powered up and booted up long enough to enable me to recover my files from the defective hard drive.  Once I am able to get it up and running I will look for a USB 2.0 adapter cable that will work with the hard drive from my HP 15.  I may ask for your recommendations at that time.

I greatly appreciate all of your responses.

[Turgeon]

I could sure use any recommendations you have for recovering data from my defective hard drive.  I have removed it from my laptop and connected it to my old laptop which has Windows 7 loaded on it.  I am using a Sabrent SATA to USB adapter .  My defective hard drive is not accessible on my old laptop.  It wants to reformat the defective hard drive.  Is it possible to access the defective hard drive on my old laptop?  The defective hard drive is out of my HP 15 laptop which had Windows 10 loaded on it.

[BeemerBiker]

I suspect a plain USB cable adapter will not work.  I looked at the parts list for your laptop and it is 

778190-001

750GB SATA hard disk drive - 5,400 RPM, 2.5-inch small form factor (SFF)

USB cables only supply 5 volts

When I looked up 778190-001 I found

one drive used 12 volts in addition to 5 volts.

another model mentioned 0.55 amps which exceeds the 0.5 amp maximum for USB2

Another problem is that when a drive is first started there is a surge of current maybe .75 amp or more then dropping to .5 amp once the motor is spinning at correct speed.  Some older laptops do not have self resetting fuses for USB circuits.

If your drive is rated at 5 volts and 0.5 amp or less then get a cheap USB3 to SATA cable.  

If you can borrow or you have a desktop system with a spare SATA port and cable then plug the drive into it.  If the disk is not corrupted too bad then you should be able to browse for your files.

[Turgeon]

Thanks for the information.  My defective hard drive has 5 VDC, 1.0 A listed on it.  I plugged it into a desktop SS USB port at the library today.  I could hear the drive spinning, but it was inaccessible.  The desktop came up with a message that indicated something like “an unrecognized parameter was found”.  I was unable to safely eject the hard drive.  The desktop indicated that files on the drive were still open.  I turned off the computer before I disconnected the hard drive.  I think that the library might have disabled some features of the desktop for safety reasons.  I couldn’t even open device manager on the desktop.

Do you think that I would be able to access the drive on a newer laptop with an SS USB port that has all features enabled with my USB 3.0 to SATA cable?