[SOLVED] Preparing Automatic Repair Error On Old Acer Aspire

[gibbsy09]

Hi I took a HDD from my PC, and placed it in an old Acer Aspire SA80 I had, just to see if it would fire up, and I got this message during boot up, Preparing Automatic Repair.

It's something I've never seen before so I did some digging for some fixes, I found some, but they all seem to be for newer machines and none for an old Acer Aspire SA80, so just wondering if anyone can come up with a fix for my model thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi I took a HDD from my PC, and placed it in an old Acer Aspire SA80 I had, just to see if it would fire up, and I got this message during boot up, Preparing Automatic Repair.

It's something I've never seen before so I did some digging for some fixes, I found some, but they all seem to be for newer machines and none for an old Acer Aspire SA80, so just wondering if anyone can come up with a fix for my model thanks.

Putting a drive with its OS in a whole different system often/usually results in either this Automatic Repair thing, as it is trying to fix itself to run in the new hardware, or complete fail to boot.

If the automatic repair does not eventually fix it...you are out of luck trying to make it boot in the different hardware.

 

[USAFRet]

And of course, if it DOES eventually "fix it" to boot up in this Aspire...when you put that drive back in its original system, it will do the same thing.
And may not boot up at all.

 

[gibbsy09]

Putting a drive with its OS in a whole different system often/usually results in either this Automatic Repair thing, as it is trying to fix itself to run in the new hardware, or complete fail to boot.

If the automatic repair does not eventually fix it...you are out of luck trying to make it boot in the different hardware.

Hi thanks for quick reply, the idea for the experiment is this, I have two PC the Acer I mentioned and a Dell Optiplex both older machines.

Firstly I was going to get a new SSD to put in the Dell PC, but I realised that I can only have one drive and for the other I need to sacrifice the optical drive which was a bit naff but I was going to anyway.

Then I remembered about my old Acer lying in the cupboard, that had two drives but both are knackered and they were running Windows 7xp at the time, so I had no idea if my Acer could cope with windows 10, I knew my Dell had a working drive, so that's when I had the bright idea to swap them over lol, but I didn't realise windows wouldn't recognize the hardware dough.

This was all really down to wanting two drives, one that would be fast, and one just for storing data, and as you guessed I'd like to keep the optical drive, and that's why I thought of my Acer which has an optical drive also.

So after that long speel lol, I would appreciate if you had any ideas how to solve this dillema, with a way of testing if the Acer could cope with windows 10, despite not having any working drives, and now you've made me aware that I could mess up the drive from my Dell, which I don't want to do thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

What are the specs on the Acer?
If it can run Win 7, it can almost certainly run Win 10.

 

[gibbsy09]

What are the specs on the Acer?
If it can run Win 7, it can almost certainly run Win 10.

Hi thanks for the reply, just scrub everything I said about the Acer PC, I'm just going to stick with my Dell Optiplex, I'm buying a SSD because my HHD in the Dell is far too slow, so tell me the easiest and hassle free way to transfer windows 10 to the new SSD, for someone who is out of practice with all this stuff.

Bearing in mind that the Dell is an old PC as well and I may not have an option to boot from a flash drive in the BIOS screen, so would that mean I would have to make up a CD or DVD, with an image from my windows 10, meaning I would have to burn an image on to either CD or DVD, as I'm totally out of practice lol.

Or is there an easier way now, I also just watched a tutorial on how to clone windows 10 using, EASEUS clone and backup, and transfer it using a usb to sata cable, just tell me what is best option for someone out if practice and practically a novice, also on the Dell I only have one HDD to play around with as the other is an optical drive thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

If this is a system that has an "old" OS, a clean install is strongly recommended, vs a clone operation.
A clone means you're just transferring all the old gunk onto a new drive.

And it can almost certainly boot from a USB.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[gibbsy09]

If this is a system that has an "old" OS, a clean install is strongly recommended, vs a clone operation.
A clone means you're just transferring all the old gunk onto a new drive.

And it can almost certainly boot from a USB.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

The operating system on the drive is Windows 10, it was a free upgrade from 8 ages ago, so yes it is an up to date Windows 10, on an old HDD, I did wonder how cloning worked and I wondered if you were moving everything on the drive over to the new one.

Couple of questions then if a clean install is the better option is it tricky to do, and will I still be able to do it with only one available drive, the other drive is an optical drive, lastly how do I go about booting from a usb flash drive if it's not in the BIOS screen, or how do I find it in the BIOS screen thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

The operating system on the drive is Windows 10, it was a free upgrade from 8 ages ago, so yes it is an up to date Windows 10, on an old HDD, I did wonder how cloning worked and I wondered if you were moving everything on the drive over to the new one.

Couple of questions then if a clean install is the better option is it tricky to do, and will I still be able to do it with only one available drive, the other drive is an optical drive, lastly how do I go about booting from a usb flash drive if it's not in the BIOS screen, or how do I find it in the BIOS screen thanks.

From the first part of that link, and here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Create your bootable USB.
It should boot from that. If not, delve into the BIOS and see what the boot order is.

 

[gibbsy09]

Thanks.