Preparing to repair (but NOT the endless loop variety)

Ok so this is my "System 2" computer as listed in my profile.

HP Compaq 8200 Elite Microtower
Win 10 64 bit OS - ver 21H1
Biostar SSD 512GM (System C:)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB (Data D:)

Like all my systems, I have Macrium Reflect set up as a boot option to on board Rescue Media that runs Windows PE

Here is what happens

1. On restart when Windows starts up, I get the black screen with Win 10 logo and tail chaser, and underneath it says "Preparing to repair".

2. Screen goes black, then pops up blue with the following options (Repair Menu?)

Continue
Use a Device
Use Another Operating System
Troubleshoot
Turn off your PC

3. None of the troubleshooting options work, and when I restart, the whole process repeats...

4. BUT if I choose "Use a Device", among the options listed there is the Biostar S120 512GB.SSD... which is the C: system drive. If I choose that, the system proceeds to my Macrium Reflect/WIndows 10 option screen, and if I choose Windows 10, it all boots up just fine and everything seems to be fully functional.

5. I ran the following
CHKDSK /R C:

SFC /SCANNOW
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image / CheckHealth
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image / ScanHealth
None of these found any issues, but I thought I would take the obvious next step

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image / RestoreHealth

But it gave no indication of anything being fixed, and restarting shows the same problem "preparig to repair", and I have to boot through the "Repair menu"

The only thing I have done recently was about a week ago, I installed the Biostar 512GB SSD. I did that by using Macrium Reflect to back up the previous C: drive (a Seagate Barracuda 7200 500 GB HDD and restore it to the Biostar 512 GB SSD. The system has been operating fine for a week.

The fact that it boots up and works fine through the "Repair menu" would seem to indicate that the OS is not broken, so why does it say it needs to repair?

Any idea what could be causing this?

Is it going to autofailover every time you start the pc?

Might be worth running chkdsk on every partition.

Lets find out if your drive is Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
Diskpart
list disk (see if you have an * on GPT column)
exit

SIW2 said:

Is it going to autofailover every time you start the pc?
Might be worth running chkdsk on every partition.

I agree. Assign a drive letter to all partitions and run chkdsk x: /f (replace x with the appropriate letter).

Please boot your computer with Windows Setup Media and from Windows Recovery Environment start the Command Prompt.

Please type the below command into Command Prompt and press the Enter key.

Following command will fix errors on the disk and locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.

Code:

Chkdsk D: /r

Please replace partition letter D: with Windows installed partition letter. When the computer boots into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment, the drive letter assign to Windows partition may not be C: drive letter because Windows 7, 8 , 8.1 and 10 creates a separate system partition when it's installed from scratch. The system partition contains boot files WinRE assigns the system partition the C: drive letter and the Windows installed partition will be assigned any other drive letter, usually D: drive letter is assign to Windows installed partition. The Bcdedit | find "osdevice" command can be used to find out the drive letter of the Windows installed partition, the output of the Bcdedit command is similar to this osdevice partition=D:. The drive letter after partition= is the drive letter of the Windows partition.





Please boot your computer with Windows Setup Media and from Windows Recovery Environment start the Command Prompt.

Please type the below command into Command Prompt and press the Enter key.

The following command scans integrity of all protected Windows system files and repairs files with problems when possible.

Code:

Sfc  /Scannow   /OFFBOOTDIR=D:\   /OFFWINDIR=D:\Windows

Please replace partition letter D: with Windows installed partition letter. When the computer boots into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment, the drive letter assign to Windows partition may not be C: drive letter because Windows 7, 8 , 8.1 and 10 creates a separate system partition when it's installed from scratch. The system partition contains boot files WinRE assigns the system partition the C: drive letter and the Windows installed partition will be assigned any other drive letter, usually D: drive letter is assign to Windows installed partition. The Bcdedit | find "osdevice" command can be used to find out the drive letter of the Windows installed partition, the output of the Bcdedit command is similar to this osdevice partition=D:. The drive letter after partition= is the drive letter of the Windows partition.




If you open the log file, you’ll be shown details of all the tests performed by Startup Repair, with any errors discovered detailed. We can use this information to help diagnose and get to the root cause of the problem.



To open the log file from the Windows Recovery Environment, click and open the Command Prompt. When the Command Prompt is open, type Notepad and press the Enter key to open the Notepad application. The Startup Repair log file is located at:

Code:

C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt

You will need to navigate to the drive on which you have Windows installed (usually the C: drive) to see the SrtTrail.txt log file.

Are you sure %systemroot% variable will work from WinRe Command Prompt?

Thanks, @Paul Black, i will use the command.

SIW2 said:

Is it going to autofailover every time you start the pc?

Yes, every time. To restart the computer I have to go

Restart
Wait for "Preparing to Repair" screen to end
On the "Repair Screen", choose Use a Device
Choose Biostar

I was surprised to see the SSD system disk listed I there. I thought that only ever listed USB devices and CD/DVD devices. This makes me wonder whether I made a mistake when I installed the SSD. Maybe I should explain exactly what I did when I installed it.

The system used to have a single, Seagate Barracuda 7200 1TB HDD partitioned into C: (System) and D: (Data). What I did was

1. Used Macrium Reflect to make a backup image of the entire physical disk including the System Reserved, C: Drive, Recovery Partition and the D: drive to an external HDD.

2. Shut down the system and installed the SSD

3. Restored only the System Reserved, C: Drive and Recovery Partition to the SSD using Macrium Reflect.

4. When I started, the system booted into the Win 10 on the Biostar (I know this because I checked in Disk Management. The C: drive was on its own physical disk, the old system was on D: on the first Barracuda partition, and the Data drive had become E: on the second Barracuda partition.

5. Erased the original System partition on the Barracuda, and merged it with the other partition into a single 1TB disk.... D: drive.

The computer ran perfectly fine for two or three days, until the first time I tried to restart it, which is when this problem began

Reading through the other replies here, I am wondering if what I have done might actually be the cause of the problem. When I restored the System image to the SSD, I realise now that the System Reserved partition would have been for the original system. Is the boot manager in System Reserve pointing to the original physical drive where it expects to find the OS? If so, then not finding it, it tries to repair, fails because there is no OS, and sends me to this "Repair Screen". Since it detects the Biostar is a bootable disk, it gives me that option, and choosing it starts Windows 10.

I might just wait until I hear back from someone here more knowledgable than me so see if any of this seems reasonable.

ETA: I'm at home right now, and the computer in question is at work, so I wont be able to do anything until I get there

ETA2: It just occurred to me that I didn't mention a detail. In Step 2 above, I plugged the SSD into the first available SATA plug on the MB. Would that affect the physical disk the Boot Manager will point to?

Did you run Diskpart - list disk as I asked to find out if your drives (HDD and SSD) are GPT?

Did you try to detach the Barracuda (SATA or power cable ) from the MB and try to boot?