Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery

How to Recover from an Infinitely Looping Startup Repair Loop without Reinstalling Windows​

If you've ever experienced a Startup Repair that continously loops and fails to fix the problem of not being able to load windows, even in safe mode, then you'll know that usually the only way to recover from this when System Restore does not work is to do a clean install of Windows.

Until now.

This tutorial will show you how to use the System Recovery Options provided by Windows to recover your system to a working state so that you don't have to risk losing data by performing a clean install.

   Warning

The instructions presented withing this tutorial must be followed correctly, or you can damage your Windows 7 installation even further. This tutorial is designed to help recover from a bad registry that is causing the startup repair loop. You should note that there may still be some issues remaining that cannot be fixed by manually restoring the registry.

Recovering Your System

1. Boot to the System Recovery Options screen.
   • If Windows automatically opens Startup Repair, and subsequently fails to fix a problem, you can skip ahead to step 4 below.
2. In the System Recovery Options screen, click Startup Repair:
   
   
   
   
3. Windows will search for an attempt to repair startup problems:
   
   
   
   
4. If startup problems could not be repaired, you will receive the message Windows cannot repair this computer automatically. Click View advanced options for system recovery and support:
   
   
   
   
5. Click View advanced options for system recovery and support, which which bring you back to the main System Recovery Options screen.
6. Click Command Prompt:
   
   
   
   
7. Command Prompt should open to X:, which is an internal ram disk use by System Repair:
   
   
   
   
8. Now you need to find your system drive. Depending on how your system is setup, this could be either C: or D:.
   • Type C: and press <ENTER>.
   • Verify that this is your system drive by typing DIR and pressing <ENTER>. If you see the Program Files, Users and Windows folders, then you have found your system drive, and can continue to step 9 below.
   • If the drive is not your system drive, repeat steps I and II above, changing the drive letter to D, E or some other letter until the system drive is located.
     
     
     
9. When you have located your Windows system drive, type CD \windows\system32\config and press <ENTER>:
10. Type DIR and press <ENTER>, and verify that the following files and folders exist in the config folder:
    • RegBack (which is a folder)
    • DEFAULT
    • SAM
    • SECURITY
    • SOFTWARE
    • SYSTEM
      
      
      
11. Type MD mybackup and press <ENTER> to create a backup folder that you can use incase this procedure does not work as expected.
12. Type copy *.* mybackup and press <ENTER>.
    • If you are prompted to overwrite existing files, press A to allow all backups to be overwritten.
      
      
      
13. Now you need to check if you can use the automatic Windows backups to restore your registry:
    • Type CD RegBack and press <ENTER> to go to the RegBack folder.
    • Type DIR and press <ENTER> to view the contents of the folder. All the following files must exist:
      • The DEFAULT, SAM and SECURITY files should each be about 262,000 bytes in size.
      • The SOFTWARE file should be about 26,000,000 bytes.
      • The SYSTEM file should be about 9,900,000 bytes.
      • The file sizes presented here are approximate estimations, and may vary depending on your system. If any one of them are 0 bytes, then you should stop what you're doing now and seek an alternative method of recovering your system, because Windows cannot function with a 0-byte size registry hive.
    • If the hive files listed in RegBack are ok, then proceed to step 14 of the tutorial.
      
      
      
      
14. Type copy *.* .. and press <ENTER> to copy the backup hive files to \Windows\System32\config.
    • If you are prompted to overwrite existing files, press A to allow all file to be overwritten.
      
      
      
15. Type exit and press <ENTER> to close the command prompt.
    
    
    
    
16. Click the Restart button to reboot your computer. If all goes well, your system will boot normally.
    
    
    
    
    

Reference Information
This tutorial was made possible after learning how to manualy replace the Windows 7 Registry Hives after reading the Recovering Windows 7 Registry Hives/Files article on Microsoft Technet.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Enable or Disable Automatic Repair in Windows 10
• Advanced Boot Options
• System Recovery Options
• System Repair Disc Create
• How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7
• Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to Repair Boot Issues

 

[vaishnavi]

Hi Everyone,

As mentioned in step 13, what is the alternative method to use if all the files are 0 bytes.

 

[Brink]

Hello Vaishnavi, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Usually, you could try these options:

A system restore at boot using a restore point (if available) dated before this happened.

If that fails, then you may need to reinstall Windows 7.

 

[JeepSWAG]

Any hope?

I have the startup repair offline issue.

The Problem Signature reads:

Event Name - StartupRepairOffline
01 - 6.1.7600.16385
02 - 6.1.7600.16385
03 - unknown
04 - 21200614
05 - AutoFailover
06 - 58
07 - CorruptFile

OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Wisely or not, I've done the following:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force

attrib -h -s E:\boot\BCD

del E:\boot\BCD
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd


No luck, so I tried;

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force

attrib -h -s D:\boot\BCD

del d:\boot\BCD
bcdedit /createstore D:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit.exe /store D:\boot\bcd.temp /create {bootmgr} /d "Windows Boot Manager"
bcdedit.exe /import D:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit.exe /set {bootmgr} device partition=D:
bcdedit.exe /timeout 10
attrib -h -s D:\boot\bcd.temp
del D:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit.exe /create /d "Microsoft Windows" /application osloader
bcdedit.exe /set {c0dfc4fa-cb21-11dc-81bf-005056c00008} device partition=D:
bcdedit.exe /set {c0dfc4fa-cb21-11dc-81bf-005056c00008} osdevice partition=D:
bcdedit.exe /set {c0dfc4fa-cb21-11dc-81bf-005056c00008} path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
bcdedit.exe /set {c0dfc4fa-cb21-11dc-81bf-005056c00008} systemroot \Windows
bcdedit.exe /displayorder {c0dfc4fa-cb21-11dc-81bf-005056c00008}

Now, I do have a slightly different boot screen. Before this, the "flying windows" did not show on boot. Not it does. However, still going to the startup repair loop.

So I tried this; http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html

No luck...
I've run the Western Dig HD diags and no errors are reported.
I've run Farbar and have the log file, if anybody want to take a peek. It's big though and will take a few posts.

Considering Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 as a next step, but will not do anything until, I hear back from you guys...

Anybody have any ideas?

 

[Zinsky]

I have tried and failed everything I've found in this thread. Reinstalling windows fixes the issue, but it comes back in a week. Any ideas?

 

[retread]

So glad I found this procedure. I was hung in a "do loop" with Startup Repair until I followed this solution. Worked great for me!!! I have recovered my OS and data.... Whooopee! Only took me 11 days of sweat and struggle to find this fix.

 

[DuanSwanepoel1]

didn't work

Hi I'm Duan, I have a custom build PC, windows home premium 32 bit, and I followed every step to the letter space and dot, but when I restart the startup repair screen pops up again... Please help me asap I need the information on my computer urgently, I might lose money if I don't get it on time! Thank you. Duan

 

[Brink]

Hello Duan, and welcome to Seven Forums.

For now, you might see if you may be able to use a bootable Peppermint live DVD/USB to get the files you need off your PC.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ate-live-cd-dvd-usb-use-emergency-backup.html

 

[Mohammed Adeeb]

Cannot Resolve the problem

Hi...
Im facing this problem when i changed my win7 32bit os to 64bit...
I followed your steps..But i have 0 byte that u told in the 13th step..plz can u tell me what is the alternative method???

 

[Brink]

Hello Mohammed Adeeb, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Alternative methods would be a system restore or system image recovery.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[DuanSwanepoel1]

Hello Duan, and welcome to Seven Forums.

For now, you might see if you may be able to use a bootable Peppermint live DVD/USB to get the files you need off your PC.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...ate-live-cd-dvd-usb-use-emergency-backup.html

I did download peppermint and rufus on a flash disk. I then put it in the problematic computer but it didn't boot the way it said it would, it just kept on going in the loop again... Any suggestions?

 

[Brink]

In that case, you might connect the HDD to another computer to back up anything that you do not want to lose. You'll most likely need to take ownership of anything you want to copy before it will allow you to.

 

[jj7220]

New to the community, thanks for the info here.

when i did the "*.* mybackup" step, the system folder wouldn't copy due to an i/o error. Am I toast?

Thanks!

 

[Mohammed Adeeb]

Thanx Shawn.......will do that method soon..

 

[Mohammed Adeeb]

hey Shawn...1 doubt...after creating a system restoring what should i do?? does this method surely helps me 2 get rid of this infinite boot loop?/

 

[Brink]

Mohammed Adeeb,

Doing a system restore at boot (if able) may be able to help. The tutorial link in my last post to you will help show you how to. Please ask if you have any questions about it.

If not, then you may need to reinstall Windows 7.

 

[Mohammed Adeeb]

Hey Shawn ..wat is the difference between creating system restore at boot and System Restore in Windows 7 using System Protection??
because my problem is the windows7 64bit will always work for the first time when i install the os..but if i restart or shutdown ,the windows wont open and goes into a infinite boot loop.....so should i o Do a System Restore in Windows 7 using System Protection or system restore at boot??

 

[Brink]

It's actually "doing" instead of "creating" a system restore. System restore is part of system protection. The only difference is doing a system restore at boot versus inside Windows to select a dated restore point to go back to.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

Where did you get your copy of Windows 7 from, and how did you activate it?

Are these clean installs of Windows 7?

 

[Seanmorgan]

help

hi i tried to use this to get out of my loop but my only option on system recovery options is start up repair. what can i do?

 

[Mohammed Adeeb]

Hey Shawn ,what do u mean by a clean install???
i usually do a custom install and the older windows files r kept in a folder named windows.old

 

[Brink]

Hey Shawn ,what do u mean by a clean install???
i usually do a custom install and the older windows files r kept in a folder named windows.old

A clean install would be to format and start from scratch.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html