Windows 8.1 wont boot up, stuck in repair loop.

[Lilyo]

I haven't installed anything lately and I can only think that it was maybe due to shutting down the computer directly from the power button (heard sudden shut downs could cause problems).

I tried startup repair, I tried doing a "refresh" but it won't accept the cd, I tried doing a safe mode boot and a debug boot, I tried changing the sata cords on my drive, I tried doing a system restore to 3 different points and they all give me the same error "System Restore did not complete successfully, System restore failed while scanning the file system on the drive E:\" (I find this strange since there is no drive E: on my computer, maybe this is the problem).
Can anyone help me out? I've run out of options. I've only installed 8.1 on this 120gb 840 evo 2 months ago. I really can't just reinstall 8.1 and erase everything, I have to figure out a way around this if anyone knows?

 

[theog]

Welcome to EightForums

From the Repair CD/USB:
How to do a Auto Repair:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2843-automatic-repair-run-windows-8-a.html
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[dalchina]

Hi, using a boot disk you could try system restore. It's not clear if this is relevant to your situation. It depends how/why the boot sequence is failing.

I encountered a situation where after about 3 restarts / automatic repair my PC suddenly switched off a few seconds after a restart. finally thermal cutout (power off- click). (This appeared due to some conflict arising from having installed two+ 3rd party programs and Win 8.1 (but not Win 8)).

 

[Lilyo]

So I booted onto my 2nd hdd and looked at the ssd and all the files seem fine and everything works when i run it off it, and i ran an error check and it found something wrong but it still boots to repair mode. Can I do anything to fix it from the 2nd hdd (win 7)?

 

[qwertyspace]

You need to go into Advanced settings. This happened to me before, I can't exactly remember how I did it. But there should be an option to skip repair, or to boot normally somewhere in there.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Can I do anything to fix it from the 2nd hdd (win 7)?

You can run a check disk operation against the "Win 8" partition from an administrative command prompt.

To open an elevate command prompt, follow instructions from the below link.

Elevated Command Prompt - Windows 7 Help Forums

To run the check disk, close Windows explorer and type CHKDSK D: /R ( substitute D: with the exact drive letter of 'Win 8" partition ).It may take a while to do complete depending on the size of the partition.

Symptoms you described earlier ( unable to do "Refresh" , "System Restore" etc) indicates a damaged/corrupted OS partition file system.

If that can't help fixing the issue, try restoring the system one more time ( may be it will work after running check disk ).

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4692-system-restore-how-do-windows-8-a.html

 

[Lilyo]

Thanks, I tried using check disk and another program to check the smart attributes and nothing found anything. Im just going to wipe and reinstall, thanks everyone.

 

[hi2shy]

Hi

I am trying to fix a laptop which has a similar issue to the OP. The laptop belongs to my daughter's friend and does not have any Windows disks with it.

The issue is the laptop will not boot, it just freezes, I can sometimes access the repair options, but cannot select any of the options as the laptop freezes. I cannot access anything on the laptop. I have tried Hiren's boot disk to check the hard drive and it has passed the tests.

I have now taken the hard drive out of the laptop, fitted it into my Windows 7 PC, run the CHKDSK options, which ran through and fixed some of the problems. I thought I would try and copy of the files from the hard drive but I couldn't access the C: drive of the laptop, but I got a CRC Cyclic Redundancy Error and I could not access any of the files.

I was wondering if there is anything else I can do?

 

[dalchina]

Hi hi2shy, Sounds like the first thing you need to do is recover as much valuable data from the disk as you can onto a separate drive. It sounds like the drive may be partitioned, though that's just a hint in your text- it may even be a dual drive laptop for example!- so if it is partitioned, make a disk image (Aomei Backupper is good- free) of any other partitions or copy data as appropriate.

That leaves the C: partition. Well, it depends how much personal data you've got on that. (I keep personal data OFF C- My Documents = 'My programs' folders' in practice!! It's full of folders they create by default. So I ignore it and similar folders.
Presumably you can see the partition at least?

You may need to deal with the MFT- recovery software may let you see the files, or even recover the structure if you're lucky. It depends what's happened to the drive.

It would be worth putting a spare drive -if you have one- into the laptop and just checking you can do something useful with the laptop. If so, your problem is probably the drive.

 

[dalchina]

Hi- this is where you (both) wish you used disk imaging (assuming you don't already). That would let you restore your exact working environment as it was when you created the image, and acts as a backup of all the data imaged. Image files can also be readily mounted (appearing as a drive or partition), and files or folders extracted.

If unfamiliar with this, you need (e.g.) a spare (large) external drive and software such as Aomei Backupper. That's surprisingly fast and in my experience better than Easeus Workstation, for example. Acronis True Image has become too large a program.

 

[Poppyking]

if a refresh wont work, the next best solution is a clean install...but u say ur cd aint being recognized..i'd advice using a bootable usb then, this u will create on ur win7 side. backup anything important and do a clean install

 

[hi2shy]

Thanks for all your replies.

It is not my laptop, so unfortunately, there is no backup. I can't access the drive using any of the methods I mentioned. I think it may have 2 partitions as I could access the 2nd partition when I had the disk in my Windows 7 PC but it was a very small partition and there were no files to recover. I will look at the MFT recovery software, that might be my only option to recover the files.

Then I guess I will do a fresh install once I recover the files.