Windows 10 boots to the recovery enviroment

poptart999

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Aug 21, 2013
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Hi, my friend's Windows 10 PC boots to the recovery environment when he boots it up. (In case you don't know what I'm talking about: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-recovery-environment--windows-re--technical-reference)

Selecting the option "Continue" just reboots the PC back into the recovery enviroment. Booting into safe mode also gives this result.

Start-up repair simply says "Start-up repair couldn't repair your PC"

A system restore always ends unsuccessfully with the error msg "An unspecified error occurred during System Restore." (0x80070091)

He hasn't tried is resetting the PC, which would be undesirable to him as he doesn't have a drive to back up his data to. Any ideas?
 
If the data is important an not backed up pull the drive and attach as a secondary drive on another system to see if the data can be recovered/backed up. Afterwards run the HDD manufactures diagnostics on the drive to verify the drive isn't failing. If it fails replace, reinstall and restore the data from the backup. If it passes reinstall the os and recover the data from the backup.