Users report that new versions of Windows OS can often be unstable and full of bugs. The “preparing for automatic repair”message with a black or blue screen is something people have been experiencing lately.
You get this error when your system is unable to boot even after two consecutive attempts. Thus, the automatic repair tool runs a series of tests to detect and fix issues that are preventing your system from booting.
However, it is seen that the automatic repair tool ends up in an endless reboot loop, leaving you with a black or blue screen of death. Reasons for this auto-recovery cycle preparation can range from erroneous system update to missing files and so on. In this article, we will tell you about all the possible causes of this problem, as well as step-by-step instructions to fix it.
Diagnosing your system to prepare for an automatic recovery cycle
If Windows Automatic Repair fails, your computer will show one of the following three symptoms:
- A black screen appears on your computer that says “Preparing for Automatic Repair”or “Diagnosing Your PC”.
- “Preparing for Automatic Repair”appears on a black screen and fails.
- A blue screen appears with the message “Your computer did not start correctly”or “Automatic repair could not repair your computer.”Moreover, if you try to reboot by clicking the Reboot button, the system will reboot and go back to the automatic recovery cycle again.
How to boot into BIOS mode to fix auto-recovery loop preparation
For most of the steps below, we need to enter BIOS mode. So, if you don’t know how to boot into BIOS mode, the steps to do so are given below:
Step 1: Restart your system
Step 2. You need to press a specific key to enter the BIOS settings as soon as the computer starts up. Now the key may vary depending on the manufacturer of your computer. So, look for the key you need to press to enter BIOS mode through a Google search or a search in the system’s user manual.
Step 3: Go to the download option.
Windows 10 Preparing for automatic repair Black screen: Cause of the problem
There can be many reasons why users see a black screen after their Windows OS starts automatic repair. If your system didn’t boot correctly or react badly during boot, this could be the cause of the problem.
Here are the possible reasons why you might be experiencing the Windows Provisioning Cycle auto repair issue:
- This can happen if the bootloader or other important boot files are missing.
- You can also get this due to a corrupt Master Boot Record (MBR).
- If any changes have been made to the BIOS settings or Boot Configuration Data (BCD), this can also cause this problem.
- A damaged hard drive can also lead to this issue. Or maybe the hard drive is missing or has a bad connection.
- Another cause could be a corrupted Windows disk or corrupted firmware.
- If there is a problem with the system display, installed drivers, or graphics card, you may get this error.
- Any random software or driver related issue can also cause Windows 10 black screen.
- Changes in BIOS settings
12 Solutions to Fix Automatic Repair Provisioning Problem
If Automatic Repair fails, your computer may receive the message “Your computer did not start correctly”or “Automatic Repair could not repair your computer.”In this case, if you select the “Reboot”option, the system will follow the same procedure and stay in an automatic recovery loop. Use the following methods to learn how to get your system out of an automatic recovery loop:
- Enable XD-bit in your BIOS
- Expand the System Reserved Partition
- Perform a System Restore
- Use CHKDWe and Built-in System File Checker
- Update graphics drivers
- Disable Auto Repair Tool
- MBR recovery and BCD recovery
- Run the SFC and DISM commands
- Perform a Windows Startup Repair
- Disable Early Launch Anti-Malware via Launch Options
- Get rid of problematic files
- Repair Windows Registry
Solution 1 – Enable XD-bit in BIOS
It is often seen that if XD-bit or No Execute Memory protection is not enabled in Windows 10, the user will be left vulnerable to “Preparing for Automatic Repair”screen loops.
Step 1: Restart your computer and press the key that puts your computer into BIOS mode. You can find out which key it is from your computer’s user manual.
Step 2: Look through the tabs after entering the BIOS mode and look for the XD bit.
Step 3. Now turn on the XD bit and click the save button.
Step 4: Restart your computer and your error should be gone.
Solution 2: Expand the system reserved partition
If your system’s reserved system partition is smaller than required, you might also get an auto-recovery loop error. Here is what you need to do in this case:
Step 1: Download a third party partitioning tool like MiniTool and run it on your system.
Step 2: When the program opens, right-click on the partition where your Windows OS is installed and select Reduce (by 250 MB). This creates 250 MB of free space.
Step 3: Drag the System Reserved section to place it next to the Unallocated space. Right-click on the System Reserved section and select Extend.
Step 4: Reboot your system.
Solution 3 – Perform a system restore
Step 1. Select “Advanced Options”on the blue screen of automatic recovery.
Step 2: Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options, and then select System Restore.
Step 3. Select a restore point that indicates the time before the blue screen error occurred.
Step 4. Click “Next”and wait for the recovery procedure to complete. Then reboot your system.
Solution 4 – Use CHKDWe and Built-in System File Checker
Step 1. Reboot the system and press the “F8″key. This will bring up the Windows troubleshooting menu.
Step 2. Select “View advanced recovery options”and then go to “Choose an option”.
Step 3: Select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
Step 4. Now in the command prompt window, type chkdsk /rc: and press the Enter button. This command will run the CHKDWe utility and find errors on your drive. Moreover, this tool also fixes errors automatically.
Step 5. Type “sfc /scannow”and press the “Enter”button. This command will run the system file checker and find errors on your system.
Step 6. After that, type Exit to close the command prompt window and restart your computer.
Solution 5 – Update graphics drivers
Step 1: Click the “Advanced Options”> “Troubleshooting”> “Advanced Options”button.
Step 2: Select “Startup Options”in this window and press F5 to select the “Safe Mode with Networking”option.
Step 3: After booting into Safe Mode with Networking, make sure your PC is connected to the Internet.
Step 4: Open the Run dialog box by pressing Windows key + R. Type “devmgmt.msc”to go to the Device Manager window.
Step 5: Now double click on the Display Adapters option.
Step 6: Right-click on the display driver and select the Update Driver option.
Step 7: Select the Automatically search for updated driver software option and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the procedure.
Once completed, restart your computer and check if the issue is resolved or not.
Solution 6 – Disable the automatic repair tool
Step 1. Insert the Windows installation disk or USB flash drive into the computer.
Step 2: Select your preferred language and click Next.
Step 3: Select “Repair your computer”and then select “Troubleshoot”.
Step 4: Select “Advanced Options”and then select “Command Prompt”.
Step 5. Type “bcdedit /set {current} recoveryenabled No”and press the “Enter”button. This will remove all problematic system files.
Step 6 Type exit to close the command prompt window.
Solution 7 – MBR Repair and BCD Repair
The Master Boot Record, i.e. MBR, and the Boot Configuration Data, BCD are important for the system boot procedure. The MBR keeps a log of your computer’s entire boot sequence and all the configuration data needed to boot the firmware. If either of these two things are corrupted or not working, it can cause Windows 10 to prepare a black screen error for automatic repair.
Follow the steps below to repair MBR and BCD:
Step 1: First, insert the Windows recovery disc into the system to boot into recovery mode.
Step 2: Reboot your system while pressing the BIOS key to enter your computer’s BIOS settings. After entering the BIOS setup program, you can change the boot sequence. Also, make the attached recovery media a priority.
Step 3: This will load the Windows Recovery Environment window. Select the “Repair your computer”option located in the lower left corner of the screen.
Step 4: Later, go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
Step 5: After launching the command prompt, type the following commands one by one and press Enter after each one:
Bootrec /fixmbr
Bootrec /fixboot
Bootrec /ScanOS
Bootrec /RebuildBcd
In addition to these commands, also run the following commands:
fixBoot – fixes the boot sector
ScanOS – Scan the system firmware for problems.
Step 6. After that, type exit and press Enter to close the command prompt. Then start Windows normally again.
Solution 8 – Run SFC and DISM commands
If the replacement files inside the Windows 10 recovery image are corrupted, the SFC command will not work. In this case, you can use the Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool.
This tool can scan and repair the install.wim image and then that image can be used to run the SFC command. Here are the steps to run the DISM command:
Step 1: Visit Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Options.
Step 2. Now click the Restart button.
Step 3: After restarting your computer, select “Turn on Safe Mode with Networking”from the list of options on the screen.
Step 4: If you suspect that there may be a problem with some of your software in Safe Mode, download the updated version of this driver from the official website and save it to an external drive for later use.
Step 5: Press and hold the Windows Key + X to select Command Prompt from the list.
Step 6 Type the following command and press the Enter key:
DISM/Online/Cleanup-Image/RestoreHealth
The process may take some time (up to 20 minutes).
Step 7. Then restart your computer and install the updated driver you downloaded earlier.
Solution 9 – Perform Windows Startup Repair
Some users have also reported that Startup Repair can also help fix the issue of preparing for automatic repair. Here are the steps you need to follow to accomplish the same:
Step 1: Insert your boot disk/Windows disk into your PC and boot from the boot disk.
Step 2: Select your preferred language in the language settings section and select the “Next”option.
Step 3. Select “Repair your computer”.
Step 4: Then select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Repair.
Solution 10 – Disable early launch anti-malware protection in startup settings
Early Launch Anti-malware (ELAM) drivers are the very first line of defense against malicious startup-at-boot drivers. This helps the Windows kernel decide whether to initialize malicious drivers or not. However, it can also classify important download startup files as malicious and thus lead to problems during download.
So, you can try to disable ELAM by doing the following:
Step 1: Go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Options.
Step 2: Select “Turn off early launch anti-malware protection”from the list of options.
Step 3: Now restart your computer to check if the issue is resolved.
Solution 11 – Get rid of problematic files
The boot loop issue with automatic repair could be due to problematic files. Thus, deleting these files will help you solve the problem:
Step 1: Go to the boot menu and select “Troubleshoot”and then “Advanced Options”. Then go to the command line.
Step 2: Enter the following command:
C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Srt
SrtTrail.txt
Step 3. This will show you all important boot files. To delete files on the command line, type the following command:
cd c:\windows\system32\drivers
del <Enter the name of the corrupt file with extension>
Step 4: Restart your computer and check if the issue with the auto repair loop is resolved.
Solution 12 – Repair the Windows Registry
It is possible that the auto-repair boot loop is caused by a corrupted Windows registry. You can repair the Windows registry by doing the following:
Step 1: From the boot menu, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
Step 2 Type the following comment into the command prompt window:
copy c:\windows\system32\config\RegBack*c:\windows\system32\config
Step 3. If you are asked which files to overwrite, type All and press the Enter key.
Step 4: Type exit to close the command prompt window, and then restart your computer.
Conclusion
The above article discusses how to fix Preparing Automatic Repair during startup. If the above methods do not resolve the “Preparing Automatic Repair”error, then try reinstalling Windows.
In this case, another thing to try is updating the BIOS of the computer to get rid of any hardware incompatibilities on the motherboard, CPU, GPU, etc. However, this guide should certainly help you fix Windows 10 coming soon. to automatic recovery, black or blue screen problem.