New
#1
Stuck in Startup Repair loop, Cannot access Safe Mode or SystemRestore
A few days ago we plugged in an external hard drive to my laptop. After my husband unplugged it from the laptop, it has been stuck in the Startup Repair loop. When turning my laptop on, it starts loading windows files but returns to Startup Repair which indicates that Windows cannot repair this computer automatically. When I select the advanced options for System Recovery Options, it gives several options, such as, Startup Repair (tried but failed), System Restore (tried but states that no restore points have been created on your computer's system drive. When selecting System Protection here, it indicates that my computer is running in a limited diagnostic state. If you use System Restore in this limited state, you cannot undo the restore operation), System Image Backup (selected but Windows cannot find a system image on this computer), Windows Memory Diagnostic (No problems were detected, but after completion my laptop restarted and returned to Startup Repair error), and lastly, Command Prompt Window (chkdsk /r indicates the type of the file system is NTFS. cannot lock current drive. Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first. All opened handles to this volume would then be invalid. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)). I have stopped here, as I do not know what to do at this point.
If at all possible, I would like to save my personal files. At this point, I'm not sure if that's possible, but would be awesome if so! Thank you in advance for your help!