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Preparing automatic repair
Hi! When my laptop turns on it says “preparing automatic repair then immediately goes to a black screen and does absolutely nothing. I desperately need this fixed now and I CANNOT afford to lose the information on the laptop. I really need help. Any fixes?
ejn63
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May 23rd, 2020 09:00
The very first thing you should do is remove the storage drive (hard drive or SSD) and purchase a means of connecting it by USB to a working system. Once that's done, back up the data to the working system's hard drive.
Then proceed with the Dell diagnostics (F12 at powerup) -- once you've verified the integrity of the hardware, you can either proceed with a repair install (you'll need Windows install media) - or, if the drive is faulty, replace the drive and do a ground-up reload.
DO NOT do anything further until you've backed up the data.
nyc10036
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May 23rd, 2020 09:00
You won't lose anything on the hard drive because most of the time the hard drive can be slaved via SATA-to-USB adapter to a working PC and data copied from the hard drive.
You'll want to see if you can immediately at bootup run Dell Diagnostics.
mickeybg
3 Posts
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May 23rd, 2020 09:00
What if I don’t have another system to back it up to?
ejn63
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May 23rd, 2020 10:00
If that was intended to state that you do not have another system to back up to, then remove and replace the drive with a new one, purchase the hardware to connect the suspect drive to the newly rebuilt system, and back up that way. You can also contact a local repair shop asking them to back up your data, but that generally takes enough time it'll be cheaper for you to buy the replacement drive and hardware you need than to pay a shop to do the job.
mickeybg
3 Posts
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May 23rd, 2020 21:00
12 hours later it finally rebooted and the automatic repairs “fixed disc errors.” Now my laptop is running like new!!!
ejn63
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May 24th, 2020 04:00
If you haven't made a backup, do that now. And run a full drive diagnostic.
Clintlgm
1.5K Posts
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May 24th, 2020 06:00
Good, now you have a chance to protect yourself from something happening to you again. Back up your entire hard drive.
The present top back up program is Macrium Reflect Free, the free version is all you need to protect yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgmG2VInObI
You need to do this. From what your post explains. “fixed disc errors.” tells you that your hard disk is failing and you will soon need to replace it. So get that disk Image quickly and order your new Hard drive/SSD, as long as your having to replace your hard drive you might as well upgrade to a 2.5 SATA SSD. You will be amazed at how much faster and more reliable the SSD is over Mechanical 2.5 SATA Hard Drive