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How To Resolve the “Startup Repair Couldn’t Repair Your PC” Error

February 16, 2026 5 분 읽기 Updated: February 16, 2026

Facing a “Startup Repair Couldn’t Repair Your PC” loop is incredibly frustrating. Sometimes Windows just doesn’t want to start, and the built-in repair tools either spin their wheels or make things worse. It’s kind of annoying how the system assumes it can fix everything automatically, but in reality, sometimes it’s more about fixing the boot sector or some corrupted files manually. These fixes aren’t always foolproof, but they’ve worked on enough setups to be worth trying before wiping the drive or reinstalling from scratch. The goal here is to get your system to boot again without losing your files, which is often possible if the right steps are followed.

Most of the time, this issue pops up because of a corrupt boot sector or a faulty bootloader. On some systems, the Windows Startup Repair tool gets stuck or misdiagnoses the problem — kind of weird, but it happens all the time. So, if you’ve already tried letting Windows fix itself and it just keeps spinning or crashing, it’s a good idea to do some manual repair work via command line tools or even try to recover your files first.

How to Fix “Startup Repair Couldn’t Repair Your PC”

Fix 1: Repair or Rebuild Your Boot Sector and Bootloader

This is usually the most direct way — if the boot sector or the bootloader is messed up, Windows won’t start. But here’s the thing: it’s kind of hit or miss depending on whether you’re running MBR or GPT partitioning, and how deep the damage runs. Nonetheless, doing these commands can sometimes make your Windows boot again without a complete reinstall. But be warned: on some setups, you might have to do this multiple times or restart a few times to see it work.

  • Boot from your Windows installation media (USB or DVD).You can create one with Windows Media Creation Tool if needed, just in case.
  • Pick Repair your computer at the initial screen, then go to Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.

MBR Repair (for older BIOS disks)

If your setup still uses MBR (most older or BIOS-based systems do), these commands can help fix the boot sector. Just enter them one after the other, then restart.

bootrec /FixMBR bootrec /FixBoot bootrec /ScanOs bootrec /RebuildBcd

Sometimes, Windows balks at `/FixBoot`, giving an access denied error. If so, you might need to run additional commands like `bootsect` or even assign correct permissions, but that’s a rabbit hole in itself.

EFI Partition Repair (for GPT disks)

Most modern machines boot via UEFI, so fixing the EFI partition is the ticket if your system uses GPT. These steps are kind of tedious, but worth it if your EFI is corrupted or missing.

  1. Run diskpart (`diskpart` command in cmd) and list your disks with list disk.
  2. Figure out which disk is your boot drive — usually, it’s the one with the largest size, or you can look for an asterisk if it shows up in your environment.
  3. Pick the disk with sel disk X (replace X with the number).
  4. Show all volumes with list vol. Find the FAT32 volume, probably around 100MB, labeled as System or Boot.
  5. Select that volume with sel vol # (replace # with the volume number).
  6. Assign it a drive letter so you can access it, like R:\ — just type assign letter=R. Now you can exit diskpart (`exit`).
  7. Navigate to the EFI directory — often, you’ll run something like cd /d R:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\. If that folder isn’t there, try `cd /d R:\Boot\` or `cd /d R:\ESD\Windows\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\` — depends on your setup.
  8. Backup your current BCD (Boot Configuration Data) just in case: `ren BCD BCD.bak`.
  9. Create a new BCD store by copying the Windows boot files: `bcdboot C:\Windows /s R: /f ALL`.Here, your Windows should be on C:\, but double-check if it’s on a different drive.
  10. Finally, run `bootrec /rebuildbcd`, then restart and see if Windows boots.

Try Windows Recovery Environment’s Other Options

If command line repair sounds intimidating, or if things go sideways, Windows has more tricks. If you see the recovery options menu, you can try things like restoring your registry backup, undoing recent Windows updates, system restore, or disabling automatic repair to get past the loop.

Restore Registry from Backup

This is a bit of a long shot unless you’ve previously set up registry backups. If yes, it’s one of the cleaner fixes that might bring your system back to life without wiping the drive.

  • From Troubleshoot > Advanced Options, pick Command Prompt.
  • Identify your main Windows partition with diskpart: `list disk`, then `sel disk 0`, then `list vol`.Find your system drive (probably C:).
  • Navigate to System32: `cd /d C:\windows\system32`.
  • Create a backup folder: `mkdir rbackup`.
  • Copy your current config folder: `copy config rbackup`.
  • Go into the backup folder: `cd config\regback`.
  • List files with `dir`.If files are zeroed out, no dice here; skip this fix.
  • If not, restore the registry backups: `copy *..\*` — confirm with Y when prompted.

Uninstall Bad Updates

If this all started after updating Windows, removing that latest update might do the trick. You can access Uninstall Updates in recovery options and roll back recent quality or feature updates. Sometimes updates break things, and this is the easiest fix.

System Restore to a Working Point

If you’ve got restore points set up, rolling back is worth a shot. You get back your system to a good state before the mess started.

  1. Pick System Restore from recovery options.
  2. Select a restore point from before the issue appeared and hit Next, then Finish.

Disable Automatic Startup Repair

This is kind of a last-ditch move, but turning off automatic repair can sometimes help you see errors that were hidden. It could give you more clues or even allow you to fix things manually.

  1. Open Command Prompt in recovery.
  2. Check current boot settings with `bcdedit` and identify your Windows Boot Loader entry.
  3. Disable automatic recovery with `bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no` (replace `{default}` with your actual identifier if needed).
  4. Reboot and see what error messages pop up.

Hopefully, one of these methods gets the system back on its feet. Sometimes, fixing the boot loader or EFI isn’t super straightforward, but it beats wiping everything or doing a full reinstall blindly. Good luck!

Summary

  • Use command line tools like `bootrec` and `bcdboot` to fix boot issues.
  • Repair EFI partition if Windows is UEFI-based.
  • Try recovery & system restore options before major reinstall.
  • Backup important files before doing any major fixes.

Wrap-up

This isn’t the flashiest set of fixes, but fixing boot sectors or EFI partitions manually can save a lot of hassle. Sometimes Windows just needs a little nudge to get back in shape. Fingers crossed this helps — it’s worked on enough machines to be worth a shot.