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

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• 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

 

[trungherox97hp]

It appeared System recovery but i can't move my mouse and i can't do anything

 

[lunathecomputer]

Peculiar or just taking a while?

I used the tutorial and all was going well, but during copying the files at the "copy *.* mybackup" stage it seems to have got stuck at "software" and isn't producing the system file copy, nor is it displaying any error message and I can't type anything. Is it just taking a really long time, or could this be another issue entirely?

 

[Caeleinn]

I woke up this morning to find my computer stuck in the automatic repair loop. I tried system restore. Didn't work. Tried to fix the startup options. Nada. Tried to fix the boot. Still nothing. Came across this post and in desperation, tried it, even though it was originally written for Win 7. I really didn't want to have to reinstall windows for the second time this year.

It worked.

I have never been happier to see my log on screen. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I joined this forum just to say that.

 

[porl3141]

Worked great for me - THANK YOU!

Dear Dzomlija,

(same as previous poster): joined this forum just to say THANKS! Your instructions worked perfectly on my Windows 7 Professional x64 laptop. Nothing else I tried before worked. I was about to finally succumb to Microsoft and install Windows 10 and reinstall my gazillions of software tools, but your instructions helped me to keep my beloved Win7 laptop alive for some time. You saved me a LOT of time and agony .

Thank you for taking the time to post these instructions (back in 2011). Very much appreciated.

Kind regards,
Porl

 

[porl3141]

I used the tutorial and all was going well, but during copying the files at the "copy *.* mybackup" stage it seems to have got stuck at "software" and isn't producing the system file copy, nor is it displaying any error message and I can't type anything. Is it just taking a really long time, or could this be another issue entirely?

Lunathecomputer: make sure your disk has enough space left for the copy operation. If that is not the problem, run chkdsk on the command line to see if the disk is OK. (do chkdsk \? to see the command options).

Beyond that, I have no idea.

-Porl

 

[windoms]

Drive not ready

Thanks for the article.
When I try to open the boot drive ( C: ) it says "drive not ready". (step 8)
I am sure this is the boot drive as I unplugged all other drives first. In chkdsk it shows up as 0bytes, but as this machine is a dual boot, when I check the drive in MacOS, it shows that the drive is not 0bytes.

 

[Ardu]

Just like Caeleinn, above, I just joined this forum to say thanks for bringing my computer back from the death start loop. I first had to figure out why I couldn't do anything to even affect the loop screen. Finally realized I had to switch ports to plug in my keyboard; (computer probably couldn't load the drivers for the rear, add-on usb device which added ports.) After that I tried all options on the screen and several I read on line. Not til this blog did I find the solution. And I also am running Win10, but the process worked smoothly. I probably screwed up my computer trying to delete an old joystick driver which wasn't loading properly. This blog, published by Dzomlija certainly saved me tons of grief. I don't know why or how it worked, but it sure did! Bless you folks!!

 

[LM2008]

Does this method works with Windows 10?

 

[Ardu]

This method works easily with Windows 10. In fact it is simpler than in 7 as one of the alternatives presented on the Blue Screen of Death ( which is reporting that you are having start problems...and therewith traps you in the infinite loop ) is the option of bringing up the command prompt ( dos prompt ). So you can start from that point.
Obviously you must be judicious, as with any computer command, and type all commands exactly as instructed, noting periods and spaces precisely. That done, then magic occurs and your computer starts working!!
Good luck!

 

[iko22]

Windows cannot repair this computer automatically

Thanks for this tutorial, but could this computer be too late for for the recovery too resolve the issue? That is, after I got to step 8 and found regback directory on the system drive, the dates of the regback files were ALL more up to date than the date I noticed the repair error message. I would suspect in my case, the hives problem has now been copied to the backup files?

 

[fr86]

I have an additional line after Default, Sam, Security, Software, system which is " SYSTME" with 0 bytes. Which is not appeared on the posted screenshot in your tutorial. Any help will be appreciated.

I have the same problem. Can someone help me?

 

[AbedTh]

Help

Is my file safe? I mean I want to keep all of my files

 

[Brink]

Hello AbedTh, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Your files will be safe while doing the steps in the tutorial. They will not be deleted.

 

[MsBobina]

Hello Brink. Thank you for the tutorials. Hey, I'm experiencing this problem on a machine I'm working on and have gone through this tutorial however there is no change. Any other ideas? Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hello MsBobina, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You could see if doing a system restore at boot using a restore point dated before this happened may be able to fix it.

:ar: System Restore - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[MsBobina]

Thanks Brink. I have tried that unfortunately the restore point wasn't far enough back. I found a post here: Windows 7 Help Forums Windows 7 help and support BSOD Help and Support » BSOD: 0x0000007b (0x80786B58, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) ---sorry, I don't know how to make it a link, but those are the same stop codes/numbers (not sure what they are called) that I get. The suggestion is to remove the drive from the machine that is getting the bsod and connect it externally to another machine and make certain changes to the registry however, there are no instruction on how to get to the registry from an external drive. Would you mind telling me how to do that?

 

[MsBobina]

I will following the instructions from the other post on what changes to make to the registry. I can ask how to get there too if you want. I just figured since I started here I would stay here.

 

[Brink]

Sure, that'll be fine to ask there or create a new BSOD thread for it.

 

[MsBobina]

okie dokie thanks.

 

[McGrittle]

The only option I have to to restart my computer, it won't let me get to the command prompt. It won't even show the icon for it