If you are trying to use a recovery disk or install Windows 10, and you receive an error message The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error, here is what you need to do to solve this problem. This problem mainly occurs when you try to use a recovery disk to restore your Windows machine to factory settings. You may also receive some other message such as Setup is preparing your computer for first use and more.

The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click “OK” to restart the computer, and then restart the installation.

The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error

Click OK once and see if it helps. If it does, great. If it does not, and your Windows goes into a reboot loop, then do the following.

When the error dialog box is present, on the same screen, press Shift+F10 keys to bring up the Command Prompt.

If this does not work for you, need to click OK and on restart boot into Advanced Startup Options. To access it, keep pressing the F8 key before Windows starts. You will see the Advanced options screen.

Click on Command Prompt to open a CMD window. Now in the command prompt type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.

Once it opens, navigate to the following key:

HKLM/SYSTEM/SETUP/STATUS/ChildCompletion

On the right-hand side double-click on setup.exe. If the value is 1, change it to 3.

Close the Registry Editor, restart your computer, and check.

This should help!