Windows 10: Win10 Repair Loop - No USB Options available

Occurence: I logged in Wednesday morning and went through my usual rounds of work related tasks. I walked away from the PC with Outlook, Excel and IE running. Went out for coffee, was gone maybe 2 hrs. Came back and of course the monitors had gone to sleep, although the PC was running, all LEDs, Fans and such were running. So I tapped the space bar - nothing. Clicked the Mouse - nothing. Noticed that all LEDs on the Keyboard and the mouse were NOT lit up. Hmm... Let it sit for a minute while I pondered the problem. Repeated the steps above - nothing. Initially I started thinking about a failed WU w/oo a restart. I said NO, my computer has always reset with new WUs and I just did this on Sunday. Can't be a bad update, or could it?



Ok, so 15min later, here we go - I pressed the Reset button on the case. Computer Resets itself, and presents a failed Post Error. So I entered the BIOS-F1, and checked everything out. Keyboard works in BIOS, mouse is responding to the BIOS GUI, all appears well. Save and Exit, she resets and black screen, with a white QLED on the mobo. Hmm, that means bad VGA. That's weird. So I reset it again, and the White QLED goes away, BIOS loads, Post Error again, so I went back into BIOS, Loaded Optimized settings with the mouse and KB working again, and Save & Exit.



After loading Optimized Settings, it loads the BIOS, but this time it boots to Windows Logo and nothing! The Keyboard and Mouse immediately shut off, and I am dead with the Win Logo on my monitor. (I let it sit for about 15min and then I repeat steps above, and the same White QLED presents itself, so I reset again, and she Fails POST. Bad GPU or Bad CPU??



I've gone through this many times with an occasional Windows Repair screen appearing (I always let it run for 15min before I resort to Resets), keeping in mind that the Keyboard and Mouse always turn themselves off immediately and fail to respond to any USB Port change, Front or Rear. Yeah - it's been a long weekend!! I have attempted using different combos of USB ports with various KBs and Mice. I have plugged in the original KB and Mice into other computers and they all work fine. So....



I begain clearing the CMOS, nothing - swapping DRAMs - nothing, then swapped the GPU - nothing, then removed the Sound Card, then tried one DRAM stick at a time, tried 2 at a time, all of these in single sequence so as not to do too much at once, but in an attempt to isolate one single problem. I then concluded something has to be bad with the mobo!!?? But before I bought the ROG Strix B450-F shown below, I plugged in a Win10 USB Bootdrive and went for F8 to repair. Reset again, NOPE - denied, the keyboard and mouse shutoff without allowing access to the USBs. Are the USB I/Os gone? ...Is this even possible? So then I remove the SSDs, and isolate the Boot to the USB - nothing!! She's been running fine for 6 months since I built her. All the clocks in the house are fine, no power outages while I was gone.



The matrix you see below is original "potential problem" parts on the left and newly purchased trouble-shooting parts on the right.



[Original Parts / Attempted ReplacementPart]



Win 10 Pro (Full) / Null

Ryzen 7 2700X @4.1 / Null (I do have a spare 1700X I can throw in with a new SSD to try, just haven't done it)

Corsair PSU TX750M Gold

Asus ROG Strix X370-F (gaming) / ROG Strix B450-F (gaming)

32GB DDR4 Corsair Dominator 3200 / 32GB GSkill DDR4 F4-2400

TitanX 1080ti FE / GeForce GTX 2060

Creative SB AXE5 / Removed

Dual Samsung 860s (1TB ea) / Null



So, I have successfully been presented with the same errors I explained above with all of these new and used parts in one sequence or another. Only thing left you say is the SSDs and the CPU? So I pulled the plug on the SSDs, Reset the CMOS all together and plugged in an old SATA I had. - SAME ERRORs!!! I can't even load a USB Boot Drive with a different HDD on the mobo.



Tonight's Tasking: My next step is to install an NvME and setup in Raid to see if I can load Win10 that way.



Is it possible the CPU is bad? Would a bad CPU present the White QLED for 2 GPUs???



I have now pulled the SSD, plugged it into this laptop via USB adapter and have access to the C:/. If anyone knows of a hidden folder with secret logs - I will post them. If you have a secret test other than chkdsk, scandisk, dism, or other error checking, share the knowledge and I will troubleshoot the attached main drive with this laptop.



Thoughts?

:)

 

Automatic Repair Loop

Hi Charlene,

Your concern regarding the device going into an Automatic Repair Loop can be caused by change on its settings/configuration or broken system files. To effectively assist you with your concern, can confirm if you've made any changes on your device prior to
your concern?

As an initial step to get back into the normal Windows screen, we suggest that you perform a
Startup repair. The repair will attempt to fix any broken components/files which may prevent your device from booting properly. To do this, follow the steps below:

• On theAutomatic Repair screen, select Advanced options.
• Select Troubleshoot.
• Select Advanced options.
• Select Startup Repair.

We'll appreciate if you can send us an update.

 

Stuck in Automatic Repair Loop - USB Not Recognized as Boot Option


Hello everyone. I've got a Dell laptop that is in an Automatic Repair loop right now (Win10).

Last night, my Wifi wasn't working, despite my other connected devices having no issues. I experienced something similar about a month ago and didn't have the patience to dig deep again and figure out what was causing it, so I simply ran a system restore.

I can't remember the exact message, but eventually I saw it said something along the lines of 'System Restore failed.' And since then, I've been stuck with a computer that simply won't run.

I've tried following the steps of other similar posts here and elsewhere, but I still can't seem to figure it out.

Some things to note:

1. 'Use a Device' lists two things: Onboard NIC (IPV4) and Onboard NIC (IPV6). I have the Windows 10 boot program on a USB plugged in, but it doesn't pop up at all.
2. When I'm in command prompt trying to run repairs, I get: "Total identified Windows installations: 0" -- does that mean Windows "doesn't exist" on the computer in some form?

I've tried to go into System Restore but it won't let me select any restore options there. The "Next" is not clickable. There is an error message (or an exclamation point in a yellow triangle) saying: "You must always restore the drive that contains Windows. Restoring other drives is not optional."

Any idea what I should be doing? "Go back to previous version" doesn't work. "Startup repair" doesn't do anything. "Select a system image backup" says 'Windows cannot find a system image on this computer.'

I have tried the bootrec.exe lines in command prompt, but nothing seems to work. Anytime I start up I get the same ol' "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC."

 

Automatic Repair Loop

Hi,

Unsuccessful installation of an update could be a possible cause why you are experiencing the automatic repair loop. To address this concern, we suggest running the Startup Repair tool using your bootable USB. This tool can scan and repair damaged system
files. Follow these steps to run the Startup Repair tool:

• Insert the bootable USB and boot Windows 10 from it.
• In the Windows Setup page, select the language to install, Time and currency format and the keyboard or input method and click on Next.
• Click on Repair your computer and select Troubleshoot.
• Click on Advanced options and select Automatic Repair and select the operating system. You might also require changing the boot priority in BIOS in order to allow the computer to boot from CD/DVD.

Important: While scanning the hard drive if any bad sectors are found, the scanner tries to repair that sector, any data available on that might be lost.

Note: Modifying BIOS settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring of BIOS/CMOS settings can be solved. Modifications
of the settings are at your own risk.

Keep us updated about the result.