stuck on window 8 "Preparing Automatic Repair" screen

[8aum]

Hi, I am on windows 8 pro on my dell XPS laptop.I tried to install Acronis secure zone on my hard-disk .It asked for a system restart and the process started after the restart. The process was taking a long time so I decided to cancel it in the middle.(I guessed hitting the cancel button reverts the process).It took arround 10-15 minutes after I hit the cancel button for the system to restart again. But the whole problem starts here.I am stuck to windows 8 "Preparing Automatic Repair " screen.The F2 , F12 ,F8 and Shift+ F8 key wont work. All keys except F2 leads me to same window "Preparing Automatic repair" loop screen. The F2 leads to a blank screen with a cursor on top left which is not blinking.I cannot enter into bios setting.

Is there any solution to get past this problem.

My system is a dual boot system with windows 8 and windows 7 .The recovery disk for windows 7 also wont work as it does not boot to recovery.I also have windows 8 bootable USB but it wont boot to it either.

Please help me .I am desperate to get some help.

Thanks

[helpdesk98]

Are you able to boot of your CD and usb media?

[Tripredacus]

So originally your PC was Windows 7 (OEM) with recovery partition? Then you installed Windows 8 I presume by shrinking a partition?

[8aum]

Are you able to boot of your CD and usb media?

No I am not able to boot into CD or USB media.restarting the system directly leads to "preparing to repair" screen.

Although if I remove the hard-disk and then restart the syatem them I am able to use F12 and F2 keys etc. but with the HD in its place these key dont work.

So originally your PC was Windows 7 (OEM) with recovery partition? Then you installed Windows 8 I presume by shrinking a partition?

Yes.You are right. It there something that I did wrong the first time.

[Tripredacus]

I've not used the Acronis software, but I wonder how many Primary partitions are on your disk now. You should have had 3 with Windows 7 (but not all OEMs do it the same way) and then 1 with Windows 8. If the Acronis software is not smart enough, it may have tried making a 5th or who knows what. It would really be helpful if you had the ability to boot into WinPE or some other thing so we could have you check the disk and BCD settings out.

You can try this... take out the HDD, then go into the BIOS. Set the boot order to have Optical drive, then HDD, then whatever. Save and exit. Then when it can't boot you can turn it off. Put in your CD and the HDD back in, turn it on and see if it will boot off the CD that way.

[8aum]

I've not used the Acronis software, but I wonder how many Primary partitions are on your disk now. You should have had 3 with Windows 7 (but not all OEMs do it the same way) and then 1 with Windows 8. If the Acronis software is not smart enough, it may have tried making a 5th or who knows what. It would really be helpful if you had the ability to boot into WinPE or some other thing so we could have you check the disk and BCD settings out.

You can try this... take out the HDD, then go into the BIOS. Set the boot order to have Optical drive, then HDD, then whatever. Save and exit. Then when it can't boot you can turn it off. Put in your CD and the HDD back in, turn it on and see if it will boot off the CD that way.

Regarding your suggestion when I remove the hd and configure the boot settings to boot from optical drive or USB two things happen.

1. If I boot from windows DVD or even ubuntu live CD and then place back the hard disk, the system hangs and restarts again disabling the F2 and other keys again.

2. If I use boot disks like Hiren's boot CD or any other boot CD it allows me to boot but it does not recognize or read this harddisk.

Let me explain what progress I have made till now

1. I have removed the hard-disk from the Laptop and tried connecting it to my desktop.Windows does not detect this hard disk . If the problem was due to number of primary partitions then it should have been detected in "manage disk view" but it does not even appear there.

2. If I use acronics rescue CD on this another system then I am able to see some of the partitions of this corrupt hard disk but here I have no option to repair this external Hard disk.

3.Any other rescue CD except acronis will not show these partitions .

4.The partition where windows 8 was installed previously is shown completely free.

Till now I havn't been able to find any software which can repair the partition table of an external hard-disk so that I can repair this hard disk. The softwares that can do so are unable to detect this hard disk

there were three primary partitions previously 1. recovery. 2 system. 3. windows 7. windows 8 was installed on a logical partitions(I am not sure if it can happen but I am pretty sure it was logical. in the manage view the color with which the windows 8 partition was represented was light blue color rather than the dark blue color with which the primary partitions are represented). This was as seen from inside of windows 7 OS.

[Tripredacus]

To be precautious, we shall no longer mention or make use of the Hiren's boot cd.

Yes I can imagine the PC would lock up by plugging the HDD in later. Various circumstances can allow that, such as not having AHCI mode and/or SATA hot plug enabled.

[jaclaz]

Till now I havn't been able to find any software which can repair the partition table of an external hard-disk so that I can repair this hard disk. The softwares that can do so are unable to detect this hard disk

there were three primary partitions previously 1. recovery. 2 system. 3. windows 7. windows 8 was installed on a logical partitions(I am not sure if it can happen but I am pretty sure it was logical. in the manage view the color with which the windows 8 partition was represented was light blue color rather than the dark blue color with which the primary partitions are represented). This was as seen from inside of windows 7 OS.

The issue is not much about the software (a simple disk editor would do) but rather about finding out what actually happened.

The MBR holds 4 partition slots.

From what you report, you had three of them taken by the original install and the fourth one by the extended partition that contains the logical volume on which Windows 8 was later installed.

The idea was to set the BIOS to permanently have the boot order as:

1. CD first
   
2. USB second
   
3. Internal hard disk third
   

then boot from the cd with the disk ALREADY connected (and needing NOT to press any key to select anything during boot).

There is NO way on earth (if there is such a setting as Boot order in the BIOS and if the CD/DVD is actually bootable) that your laptop should boot to anything different from the CD/DVD.

When you connect the hard disk to your desktop, you don't want to check if actual volumes are mounted in Explorer, you want to check if the added disk is found in Disk Management.

If it is, use Hdhacker (or a disk editor) to get a backup of the MBR of that disk (first sector of the \\.\PhysicalDrive).

http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

Compress the backup in a .zip file and attach the .zip to your next post or upload it on some free hosting site and post a link, and' I'll have a look at it.

jaclaz

Edited January 1, 2013 by jaclaz

[8aum]

To be precautious, we shall no longer mention or make use of the Hiren's boot cd.

Yes I can imagine the PC would lock up by plugging the HDD in later. Various circumstances can allow that, such as not having AHCI mode and/or SATA hot plug enabled.

will take care next time.But may I know the reason.

Till now I havn't been able to find any software which can repair the partition table of an external hard-disk so that I can repair this hard disk. The softwares that can do so are unable to detect this hard disk

there were three primary partitions previously 1. recovery. 2 system. 3. windows 7. windows 8 was installed on a logical partitions(I am not sure if it can happen but I am pretty sure it was logical. in the manage view the color with which the windows 8 partition was represented was light blue color rather than the dark blue color with which the primary partitions are represented). This was as seen from inside of windows 7 OS.

The issue is not much about the software (a simple disk editor would do) but rather about finding out what actually happened.

The MBR holds 4 partition slots.

From what you report, you had three of them taken by the original install and the fourth one by the extended partition that contains the logical volume on which Windows 8 was later installed.

The idea was to set the BIOS to permanently have the boot order as:

1. CD first
   
2. USB second
   
3. Internal hard disk third
   

then boot from the cd with the disk ALREADY connected (and needing NOT to press any key to select anything during boot).

There is NO way on earth (if there is such a setting as Boot order in the BIOS and if the CD/DVD is actually bootable) that your laptop should boot to anything different from the CD/DVD.

When you connect the hard disk to your desktop, you don't want to check if actual volumes are mounted in Explorer, you want to check if the added disk is found in Disk Management.

If it is, use Hdhacker (or a disk editor) to get a backup of the MBR of that disk (first sector of the \\.\PhysicalDrive).

http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

Compress the backup in a .zip file and attach the .zip to your next post or upload it on some free hosting site and post a link, and' I'll have a look at it.

jaclaz

That is the case. the HD is neither mounted in explorer nor in the Disk Management.What can be the problem if I am not able to see the HD in Disk Management but able to see it while I boot from a bootable rescue CD.

Edited January 2, 2013 by 8aum

[bphlpt]

To be precautious, we shall no longer mention or make use of the Hiren's boot cd.

Yes I can imagine the PC would lock up by plugging the HDD in later. Various circumstances can allow that, such as not having AHCI mode and/or SATA hot plug enabled.

will take care next time.But may I know the reason.

Because that boot cd is considered warez. Yes I know there are two versions, one with and one without certain apps, but that is not the point. For both versions the PE itself is the problem as it violates the MS EULA. The same thing was true for the original version of Bart's until he changed it and removed the objectionable files/methods.

Cheers and Regards