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infinite Boot loop on a Lenovo ThinkPad running W11 after Windows update reboot

Guillaume Payre 20 Reputation points
2025-10-17T17:02:01.97+00:00

Hello everybody,

My Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 AMD Ryzen running Windows 11 is on a infinite boot loop on the first start screen with the big red LENOVO Logo with the circle underneath which has been loading / spinning endlessly for the past 12 hours (but I didn't know what to do so I preferred not to touch anything rather than do something stupid).

I can take a picture for you, but you can imagine which first screen and LENOVO Logo it is.

This boot loop at startup happened after I restarted the Windows PC 11 after it offered an update (after "downloading" it in Windows Update in the settings).

I have no "Press Enter to Interrupt Startup" line on the screen.

On some online forums, some say to remove the SSD to recover the data but I would like to avoid getting to that point.

Or they tell to reinstall an OS (Windows 11…) on the Lenovo (I bought it without an OS and I installed Windows 11 after purchasing a Licence key).

I would like to avoid reaching these two "extremes" point, sorry (I had quite a bit of data on this PC and softwares that took me quite a while to install :(

1/ Can I press the "Power" button for a long time to turn it off?

2/ Press the "Power" button several times to get it to start in safe mode?

3/ Or do I plug in a USB dongle (made with Ventoy?) to diagnose?

4-1/ Or a key created with the Windows 11 Media Creation Tool on it to diagnose / reinstall Windows?

4-2/ Boot on one of this two USB dongle?

5/ Reinstall an OS (Windows 11…) using Windows 11 bootable key?

Thank you very much for your help :)

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Windows update
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  1. JC 8,140 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2025-10-17T19:25:04.47+00:00

    Hello,

    If your pc has been on the boot logo for the past 12 hours, you should try shutting it down. I’ve done it on my computer several times, when I’m in a hurry and windows isn’t done updating, I force shut it down and in my experience the pc recovers fine afterwards. However, I’ve never left it running for 12 hours on a loop, the longest amount of time I’ve left a pc stuck on an update was 20 minutes.

    For your questions 1. I’d say yes

    1. You can get into recovery mode by having 3 illegal shutdowns in a row

    For 3-5 you can do those, but you’ll lose your data, do it at your own risk.

    In case the pc doesn’t boot the best option is to remove the SSD, plug it into a different computer and recover the data from there, once you have a copy of the data you can reinstall windows.

    Hope this helps,

    JC

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