Herobox J4125 - stuck Preparing automatic repair (change SSD)

MiniPC HeroBox
1

Herobox
Type: CWI527
Serial Number: ZHeroBCZ1H220303092

It keeps stucked/freezed on booting with the Windows logo and saying: Preparing automatic repair.

I can get into the BIOS pressing ESC.

I have tried with so many different types of Windows version (from here from the forum and from Microsoft website). Windows 10 and Windows 11 USB ISOs into a USB pendrive with no luck.

WINPE named.
FAT32 format. Also NTFS format.

No lucky. Always stucking into the Windows logo and a loading circle…

Any clue?

Thanks in advance

2

A suggestion:

It might be stuck with secure boot while booting in a corrupted operating system.

Assuming you have your data backed up, you could remove SSD, format it, and put it back.

Then you should be able to access BIOS and reimage or reinstall an operating system.

Cheers, Jaap

3

Thanks for the support.

By the moment, I’m trying to format using a live Ubuntu USB (with no luck).

I don’t have any kind of tool to extract physically the SSD, plug in into an another computer, format it and put it back.

Regards

4

Clear. Does Ubuntu start?

5

Yes, it starts. I’m trying to remove all the partitions and format the SSD.

I used to do this kind of stuff long time ago, but I’m a bit rusty…

6

Good. I normally use gparted. You can install that in the live version with “sudo apt install gparted”. Then you can start gparted. Just remove all partitions and create a gpt table.

You could then try to start with a USB flash drive created by the Windows Media creation tool. Windows setup will create the partitions it needs.

Cheers, Jaap

7

Thanks, I’ve tried with gparted with no luck.
I’ve also tried with gdisk and parted, no luck either…

All the apps get stucked at the time of trying to delete the partitions.

8

Then I fear you have a hardware error. Hopefully the SSD because that can be replaced.

Cheers, Jaap

9

Thank you very much for your help, jaap.

This is a snapshot from Disks:

image
image1920×1440 254 KB

Then, here are the steps I’m trying with GParted…

image
image1920×1440 229 KB

image
image1920×1440 220 KB

It seems that everything is ok…

image
image1920×1440 246 KB

But when I click OK, everything is again as at the beginning:

image
image1920×1440 285 KB

I think that, as you said, it seems to be a hardware issue…

Thanks

10

Maybe you’re lucky and it is just the drive. Seems to be a 2.5 inch drive. I saw a Kingston for less than 30 Euro on Amazon.

Cheers, Jaap

1 Like
11

So, I finally bought a new SSD - SATA III.
After installing it, the Herobox kept freezing at the Windows logo with the loading symbol.

I removed the NVMe hard drive, leaving only the new SSD in the Herobox.
After that, I was able to install Windows 10 normally, and now it’s working like a charm.

Thanks,
Regards

12

That’s good news. Out of curiosity, what applications do you use? This CPU is not the fastest, especially when using Windows.

Cheers, Jaap

13

Very basic use. Email, browsing the Internet, watching movies…

PS: It’s not my computer :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Thank you for showing this, i am sure it will help other users.