Laptop won’t restart properly

[gms29]

I am having issues restarting my laptop. Even after doing hard resets with or without anything (like a charger) plugged in, I get a loading screen with the message “Preparing Automatic Repair” then the screen goes black. 

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@gms29 

This message means that Windows has become corrupted -- so much so, that it can no longer boot. MS puts up this message to tell you that Windows will repair itself -- but in my experience of having seen this dozens of times over the years, it has NEVER been able to make those repairs. So it keeps rebooting and redisplaying this again and again -- until you get disgusted and turn off the PC!

This problem is nearly 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, you would have to resort to reinstalling Windows from scratch.

[gms29]

Hello, 

Thank you so much for your detailed response. From reading other forum content I suspected I was having issues with my Microsoft software and am so frustrated that this seems to be confirmed. I’m having difficulty launching my laptop in Safe Mode or doing anything else so I will just take it to Best Buy and hope they can help. I’m not a computer person and don’t want to make matters worse. Thank you! 😞