Automatic Repair kicked in after Windows Update problems and now stuck

dalchina · 20 Apr 2023

I'm afraid I wouldn't know how to do a clean install or where to get installation media

A clean install is routine... ALL builds of Win 10 are freely downloadable.

From the searchable Tutorials section (in fact the two you need are right on this page- no need to search- 1 click on Tutorials above):

Automatic Repair kicked in after Windows Update problems and now stuck-1.jpg

Bottom right.. can you see 'Clean Install...' and 'Create Bootable...' (the latter is linked from the former anyway of course... blue text in tutorials is usually clickable).

X: is presumably a RAM drive (a virtual drive) in this case.

hershey4 · 23 Apr 2023

One more question if you don't mind... you've been very helpful and this is helping me for my w11 new laptop also.

What is the difference between:
1. repairing from WinRE
2. using a USB recovery drive (don't have one for dead-coma laptop, but going to make one for new laptop)
3. clean install from downloadable media

Obviously, the last one, I lose all my data. In a perfect world, I would have backups of my data but would still have to reinstall all software.

#1 seems to require bitlocker recovery key. would #2 also?

dalchina · 23 Apr 2023

Booting to Advanced Startup options (RE) offers:
command prompt
System Restore
Startup Repair

Recovery Disk: from the searchable Tutorials section:
Recover Windows 10 from a Recovery Drive

You should consider using disk imaging regularly and routinely as this is the best option to avoid clean installs, and provided the problem occurred after your oldest image.

hershey4 · 23 Apr 2023

So you're saying there are 4 methods... now I'm more confused. Still don't understand the difference between #1 and #2. or #4.

I wish these things were in laymen's language. We're not all car mechanics. But thank you for trying.

dalchina · 24 Apr 2023

1. Advanced Startup options (a series of blue screens)
If you look at this tutorial it's in pictures for you:
This is what you get by making use of the Recovery partition e.g. by
Finding an option on your screen labelled 'Restart'
(Hint- this restarts your PC)

If you press and hold the SHIFT key (on your keyboard) and then left click (using the left button on your mouse) you will get to those options.

Look at that tutorial and you can see what options you will have. I listed them above.

2. Using a previously create Recovery disk (which you asked about).
I gave you the tutorial above - again with pictures.

3. Disk imaging - use a program like Macrium Reflect (Google) - referred to thousands of times on tenforums.
Other programs- Aomei Backupper, Acronis True Image, Easeus Todo Backup

These create a compressed copy of the used part of the partitions imaged as a single file e.g. on an external disk.

Should your internal disk fail (for example) you can then restore those imaged partitions to a new disk- and you're back up and running. That's just one example of how disk imaging can help.

For terms you don't understand- e.g. 'command prompt' - try Google -

"What is a command prompt in Windows"

"What is disk imaging"

The above are for different purposes in different situations.