Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery

Great indications - it works on windows 10 also

I have a lite version of windows 10, that I use for my work, working in a virtual machine under ubuntu.
After a system update of virtualbox, windows wasn't able to start entering in an infinite loop of automatic repair.
Following this guide, after 10 min. of timework I resolved.
Thank you very mutch!

Fabio

question

I am trying to do this but in step 13 the last line say
DIR 0 bytes of free space. The other numbers are almost the same in the instructions. I can still do this if my hard drives has no free space? Do you know how I can free disc space to complete the procedure?
Thanks

Hi Eli21,

ITS NOT saying not enough Disk space BUT NOTHING in the hive if its showing 0 , which it needs to complete the repair, hence the rider you will need to do it a different way
Have you any re-install disks??. if so follow this tutorial
Repair Install - Windows 7 Help Forums

Roy

Reg takeover!

Just like to thank Peter for this very good info,because I had completely lost Windows.
I persevered refusing to fresh instal Windows,and after 50 or maybe more restarting I actually was able to get into cmd prompt again,and so THANKS you are doing great work Peter.

Thanks!

I've registered on the forum just to say thanks. I'm on Windows 10 Pro, got the infinite startup loop after windows update (I think). Spent hours trying google searched answers, stumbled on this thread, follow the steps, and it worked! Much appreciated!

Thank you very much!

I am yet another happy customer. This tutorial was perfect and fixed my problem without a hitch. Thank you so much!

i already had that loop problem some time ago, then used those commands, of the front page

CD \windows\system32\config
DIR
MD mybackup
copy *.* mybackup
overwrite with A
CD RegBack
DIR
copy *.* ..
overwrite with A
exit
remove windows DVD and restart go to BIOS and select hard drive as boot device

now it happens again

when entering those commands i get this screen

X is now the new boot drive, which is new to my knowledge
I have double the amount of config files ? with .log endings
And one of those rows show 0 Bytes, so i stopped with going on entering any further commands

is this all just a mistake, and simply means nothing else than, that there is an already once created backup that i can use to restore

sorry for the english, german native language

someone in another forum posted to copy those files, in cmd command window, from the original windows DVD to the hard drive that windows is installed on and everyone was happy with the result, but i am not sure if i should do that, because i am confused as to why the boot drive is called X, why are there a double amount of config files with .log endings, and therefore how to behave in my case

C:\windows\system32\config\regback\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
C:\windows\system32\config\regback\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
C:\windows\system32\config\regback\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
C:\windows\system32\config\regback\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
C:\windows\system32\config\regback\default c:\windows\system32\config\default

X is the winpe drive in RAM. Nothing to do with your hard drive.

You need to locate your windows installation partition. It can be done via diskpart commands, or it is easier to type the following in cmd prompt:

Notepad
(then press enter)

When notepad pops up, click File, then Save and you can use the browse dialog to browse your computer and get the drive letter that has been assigned to your windows partition ( it might not be C - don't worry, use the drive letter that you see in the browse dialog )

Alternatively, you can use my boot media which includes windows explorer ( and lots of tools ) so you can see what you are doing:

17514x86.iso

17514x64-v10.iso

ok going to try that

1. should i be concerned about those double entries ? one time normal and a second time with .log endings

2. and when i copy those commands from the windows dvd onto the hard drive

for example the command:

copy C:\windows\system32\config\regback\system c:\windows\system32\config\system

i have to change the second c: in that command line, to the letter of my hard drive, right?

3. i also got a "CRC" error message on drive D:

thinking about to do that chksdk /f /r command first or those windows dvd copy files command onto hard drive

copy ?:\windows\system32\config\regback\system ?:\windows\system32\config\system

You need to use the letter of your windows partition for both the ? above. That is the letter as seen from your booted media

It might be C, or it might be D or another letter. That is why you need to look to find the windows partition letter - as seen from your booted media.

1. should i be concerned about those double entries ? one time normal and a second time with .log endings

Click to expand...

No - because they are on the X drive ( winpe drive) - they are nothing to do with your windows installation at all - completeley irrelevant.

there are 3 hard drives llisted and 1 that has to be the one, because its a 500GB hard drive, but shows 0 Bytes

when right clicking that drive, and going into properties, i can click on that first button, to check for errors, but then it says, "cant check for errors on the drive, because cant access the drive"

so copying those commands doesnt work

if i just type D: in CMD, to jump to that drive it says, "D: CRC error"

and so happens, when i type that command line "copy D: ... and so on

running chkdsk D: /f /r right now

Yes, it looks like D is the problem.

the chkdsk /f /r command does work, to make the pc boot up again

but the pc gets that infinite loop problem, almost every day, that means i have to enter the chkdsk /f /r command almost every day

Could be a problem with the disk. Safer to get a new disk. They are cheap nowadays.

Signed up especially to say thanks to the OP for the first post. After trying multiple system recovery from win 7 iso, rebuild MBR etc, chkdsk, SFC scannow etc etc, using the reg backup files worked. (Win 7 64 bit Samsung laptop)

Cheers

That did not work.

Hello, when I tried to copy all the files to my backup folder, the other 6 files were copied, but the "system" file fails to copy with the error "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error."