random restart repair cycle

GoldExodus · March 26

so I'm currently in a bit of a rut

I was building my new pc today, installed windows and everything was going great, until it told me I needed my activation key (which I don't know cause it was linked to my previous mobo), It then froze for a solid 5 minutes, shut down and now it's been in a repeating cycle of "preparing automatic repair" go into boot screen, choose any option, restart "preparing for automatic repair"

any help will be greatly appreciated

--SID-- · March 26

Can you enter the BIOS?

GoldExodus · April 7

On 3/26/2025 at 9:44 PM, --SID-- said:

Can you enter the BIOS?

I am so sorry for the late response and thank you so much for a response either way, so it turned out to be the fact that my windows installation was corrupt or didn't finish properly, cause I wiped the drive again and reinstalled and it worked great!

but thanks again!!!

Heyjake · April 7

The automatic repair loop usually means something went wrong during installation or Windows had a hard crash it can’t recover from. First, try to force your PC into recovery mode by holding the power button to shut it down when you see “Preparing Automatic Repair.” Do this three times in a row — on the third reboot, you should be taken to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). From there, go to “Troubleshoot,” then “Advanced options,” and select “Startup Settings.” After restarting, press F4 to boot into Safe Mode. If that works, you can troubleshoot further from inside Windows. If not, you’ll want to boot from a Windows installation USB. If you don’t already have one, you can create it using Microsoft’s Media Creation Tool on another computer or download the boot file from Microsoft. Once you boot from the USB, click “Repair your computer” instead of installing, then go into Advanced Options and try “Startup Repair.” If that fails, go into Command Prompt and try running chkdsk C: /f /r and sfc /scannow to fix any disk or file system errors.

If nothing helps and the loop continues, a clean reinstall of Windows might be your best option. Boot from the USB again, and this time go through with the install. You can skip the activation key step for now — if your Windows license was tied to your Microsoft account, it should automatically reactivate once you log in. If not, you may need to contact Microsoft support to help transfer your key to the new motherboard. Let me know how far you get on here and I’ll help you figure out the next step. You will have already done the hardest part.