Windows 10 stuck in automatic repair loop solved
Hello guys, my name is Dondonen, a developer and tech enthusiasts. Click the link My Profile to know more about me. Follow me Dondonen Akpera on medium or @dondonenakpera on twitter for more articles
So for about a week, my windows 10 pc has this huge problem. It all of a sudden popped up a blue screen saying “my pc just ran into an error and needs to restart”. The error message still persisted after series of restarts.
I tried some recovery methods I saw online, prominent among them was the “Use Automatic Repair” so windows can collect all information needed and try to fix the problem by booting the system in safe mode .
When the pc booted in safe mode, it prompted to restart the system and since then had been restarting into safe mode consistently which technical means it’s looping endlessly.
This happens basically when you experience interrupted shutdown, power failure or error in system update on your pc.
Here is how I fixed the problem and got my pc fully back and running.
Get access to the boot menu
If your pc gets into automatic repair loop, you can’t access the boot menu. To be able to get access to the boot menu or BIOS, you will need to reset the CMOS battery.
This can be done in 3 ways; Reset with Case button, Reset with Motherboard button or Reset with Reseating the CMOS battery. In this article, I used the reseating the CMOS battery cause my hardware didn’t provide options for the first two methods.
Open the PC, locate the CMOS battery on the motherboard and carefully pop it out through the release lever indicated above using the required tool.
The CMOS battery maintains the primary system configurations such as indicating which location the PC should boot from. The PC keeps booting from the Hard disk as expected and that keeps you stuck in the loop. When the CMOS battery gets reset, previous config settings are gone and now you will be able to access the boot menu where you can change which location the PC boots from.
Change the boot order with “USB FLASH DRIVE” taking precedence
After you’ve closed the PC and everything is in place, press the power button to boot the PC. Take note of the indication on how to access boot menu displayed on your screen. Mine was F1 but it varies according to System Builds.
While in the boot menu, locate the ribbon “Boot” or “Boot order”
Move the option “USB — Flash Drive” or “Removable Device” to the top
Save Changes and Exit.
Download the Windows 10 ISO file
Using another windows pc, download the Windows 10 Operating System from Microsoft official website.
You can as well have one or just receive the file from a friend.
This is probably because with this problem, your best option is to reinstall Windows 10
Create a bootable media and Re-install Windows
The download page of Windows 10 will probably walk you through all the processes than any tutorial out there so I recommend you follow that. Just click on the link right below the above picture.
Just to have a second option, here is a simple tutorial video you could follow Click Here
After the whole process is done, you’re probably thinking you will have a brand new PC that has no issues….yes that’s true but not exactly.
Check Date, Time and Region
When you did a reset on the CMOS battery, all previous system configurations were wiped. This implies information like Date, Time, Region, Input Language etc will all go back to factory settings, so ensure you change that.
Ensure your keyboard and mouse are working properly
Within the same window (Time and Language) choose a preferred input language for your keyboard and mouse cause both probably changed too when the CMOS battery was reset.
After you’ve done all this then your pc should be ready to go with everything in place. There are just a few things I would love to mention before I round up.
During the reinstallation of the Windows 10, ensure you backed-up your hard drive data on another storage device or PC using an external hard drive case. If you hadn’t done that then choose the option that will specify you keeping your files intact during the reinstallation process (the tutorial specifies that).
Secondly, it is a good practice check for system updates and update to the latest version of windows 10 after your done. This will have windows defender up to date and enable you get the latest level of security prevent your PC from further occurrences/virus infections.
I hope this was helpful. Don’t forget to leave a comment about anything you noticed.
Best Regards
