"Preparing Automatic Repair" With Zero Progress

[marneo]

There's something very strange going on with my HP Pavilion 17-g121wm and I hope someone can please advise what I should do. A few weeks ago, out of nowhere, on powering up the machine, it would not load Windows 10. All it would do is continually cycle through displaying "Preparing Automatic Repair" on the screen. That would keep coming and going for hour after hour with nothing changing. I managed to download the latest version of Windows 10 from the Microsoft website and create a bootable USB Windows 10 installation flash drive with the Microsoft media creation tool at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10?msockid=399a0214610f66c7394d17e860896731 and reloaded Windows 10 Home edition and got everything back up and running only to have the same thing happen again a few times now since then. Last Saturday, with the machine left on, I went to do something else and, not having powered it down, I came back to find it doing exactly what I just described above so I had to go through all the same motions again of reloading Windows 10 Home only to power up the machine this morning and have the same "Preparing Automatic Repair" displaying on the screen. I've since reloaded Windows 10 Home but obviously, this is a completely unsustainable state of affairs. I can't keep taking 3 hours of my day twice a week to go through all of this. Can anyone suggest what might be causing this and what might be a viable solution please?

[VikramTheGreat]

Hi @marneo,

Welcome to the HP Support Community.
 

Thank you for posting your query. I will be glad to help you.

What you're experiencing on your HP Pavilion 17-g121wm is not sustainable, and you've done a commendable job so far using the Media Creation Tool and reinstalling Windows 10 each time. The problem now isn’t just a software glitch — there’s likely an underlying hardware issue, especially with your hard drive or SSD, that's triggering these recurring failures.

Let's try a Hardware test to find if it's a hardware issue.

1. Run a Full Hard Drive Health Test

Your hard drive is the first thing to check. It might still seem to work (especially just after a reinstall), but behind the scenes, it may be riddled with bad sectors or failing read/write mechanisms.

🧪 HP UEFI Diagnostics (No OS Needed)

1. Power off your laptop.
2. Power it on and immediately press Esc repeatedly, then press F2 for diagnostics.
3. Choose Component Tests > Hard Drive > Quick Test, then run the Extended Test (this will take longer, but is essential).

If it fails or gives a "SMART check failed" or "drive imminent failure", → The hard drive needs replacement.

2. Backup Any Data Immediately

Since you're still able to boot after reinstalls, back up any critical data NOW before the drive fails:

• Use OneDrive, Google Drive, or a USB drive.
• Or, boot using the Windows USB again and go to Shift+F10 > notepad > File > Open to access files and back them up externally.

I hope this helps.

Take care, and have an amazing day!
 

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Regards,

VikramTheGreat

[marneo]

Good Day Vikram and thank you for your compliment about having done a commendable job so far using the Media Creation Tool and reinstalling Windows 10 each time. The fact is I've posted twice earlier with respect to this same issue so I've gotten some earlier guidance from other support agents: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Is-there-a-more-recent-BIOS-tha... https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/How-to-load-the-necessary-driv... As it regards your assessment that "the problem now isn’t just a software glitch — there’s likely an underlying hardware issue, especially with your hard drive or SSD, that's triggering these recurring failures", I included the links to the earlier posts in case you wanted to give the history of this issue and my earlier interactions with other support agents a quick read. As you can read, I have a brand new hard drive installed but this problem still manifested with the new drive as it had done with the original drive. I've already run the Hard Drive Quick Test but I confess I have yet to run the Extended Test. The last 2 times this issue manifested were one week ago yesterday and then again the day of my most recent post ... the one to which you were kind enough to reply. So today is the 4th day on which my notebook has managed to boot up without an issue. Having clicked out to some of the Recommendations on the right side of the page leading to posts by community members experiencing the same issue, I was guided to the following video on how to resolve a corrupted Windows bootloader: https://youtu.be/CZ17JrgFFhw Windows 10 and 11 Won't Boot, How To Fix UEFI Partition CyberCPU Tech If this issue manifests again, I plan to run the Hard Drive Extended Test as per your recommendation and to go through the steps outlined by the author of the video above to rebuild the UEFI bootloader and I'll be back to post about what happens going forward. Thanks again Vikram. Have a good weekend.