I have had the dreadful Windows “Preparing to automatic repair” issue for some time on an Acer Swift laptop with Windows 10. Today, I reset the battery at theback of the laptop by inserting a pin to that tiny hole for about 30 minutes, then restart, no change.
Then I followed this link https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/642028/stuck-on-acer-boot-screen-with-either-preparing-automatic-repair/p1?tab=all and tapped F2 a few times upon restart, it now changes to “Diagnosing windows” and get to Automatic Repair screen with Shut down and Adavanced Options buttons. I selected the latter, and advanced options, repair the windows (no help) later Command propmt, entered the command: “sfc /scannow”. However, when it restarts, it still shows “Diagnosing windows …” and then Automatic Repair screen again.