Please help: Windows 10 Automatic Repair Loop

[extraT]

Hoping someone here will be able to help me before I lose my mind.

Earlier today my surface pro three lost power. Plugged in the USB cable waited a few moments and restarted the computer. So far so good. After a few moments it entered the automatic repair system. I left the computer on its course only for it to say your PC did not start correctly. Now I can’t seem to break this loop. It’s asking for my key but I never set one up. But the computer insists I have!

Any ideas on how I can just get the device to load normally?!

[Ozone]

MS Communities say to download a recovery image and re-install -

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/...

[extraT]

Ozone said:

MS Communities say to download a recovery image and re-install -

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/...

Thank you, but at the moment I don’t have a usb stick.

I’m happy to do a complete reset, but at the moment even that isn’t working! I need the device up and ready for tomorrow

[Qwerty911]

I had this issue earlier this year. In the end I think I paid around £70 for a recovery download off the net, to a mem stick on a different pc. Followed the instructions and it worked perfectly.

[Ozone]

extraT said:

Ozone said:

MS Communities say to download a recovery image and re-install -

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/...

Thank you, but at the moment I don’t have a usb stick.

I’m happy to do a complete reset, but at the moment even that isn’t working! I need the device up and ready for tomorrow

Have you tried a hard reset? :

press and hold the power key for about one minute and it should restart

I don't know if you will lose any data but it might be worth a try.

[extraT]

Ozone said:

Have you tried a hard reset? :

press and hold the power key for about one minute and it should restart

I don't know if you will lose any data but it might be worth a try.

Trying it now... I’ll update in a few moments

Sadly it didn’t work

[Amused2death]

Can you boot it into safe mode?

[extraT]

Amused2death said:

Can you boot it into safe mode?

Nope and to make matters even more frustrating, in cmd prompt I can get the id and it’s shows the “numerical password” which is too short and contains letters

This hints that, as I thought, the password wasn’t ever set, even though the system is locked.

I fking hate technology.

[extraT]

dibbers006 said:

It's there a battery for the BIOS you could pull.

Leave it for ten mins and try doing whatever the cmd reboot setup stuff is.

ETA Section 2 HERE

Looks like it might not even have a password. You tried just hitting Enter?

Edited by dibbers006 on Wednesday 30th December 20:44

I think I’m going to have to give up for tonight and hope a local shop stocks 16gb usb sticks where I live (Austria) to try a boot.

fking pissed off.

Thank you all for your support, much appreciated.

ET

[extraT]

Ozone said:

MS Communities say to download a recovery image and re-install -

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/...

Me again...

I tried the steps as prescribed in the link, the problem is it won’t recognise the usb as a drive. After playing around I found a screen that says a partition is missing. I tried to reboot and get access to the menus but there aren’t any options to boot from usb

Edit to add I did manage to get into the BIOS menu and sets it to boots from USB but then somehow are another it goes back into the never ending loop it asks me to choose the language and then it asked me to choose an option but whatever option I choose I end up going around in circles…

Does anyone have any ideas.. or do I now have a nice paperweight?

Edited by extraT on Tuesday 5th January 19:31

Eta2: out of sheer desperation I restarted everything again, started selecting random things that made it look like booting was an option... now it says it’s “recovering this pc” and is 15% of the way through... here’s hoping...!

Edited by extraT on Tuesday 5th January 19:40

Eta3: it worked! I followed the steps above, but what is missing is after you reset, you’re still trying to boot from usb. You need to go back into bios and then reset back to security enabled and boot from ssd! Wooo!

Thank you Ozone for you help. Sincerely.

ET

Edited by extraT on Tuesday 5th January 20:43

[Ozone]

Well done, persistence paid off!!

Glad you got it working. It's always good when an OP comes back with an update.