Does prepare relate in any way to the prefix 'pre' (meaning 'before')? [closed]

Yes, the pre- in prepare comes from Latin prae-, and means something like "before" or "in advance" (OED, "prepare, v." and "pre-, prefix").

However, once a word enters English, it does not necessarily retain the sense of its original terms. There is no pare word in English that means to make ready, as parare did in Latin. So prepare itself means something like to make ready. While logically one has to prepare before doing something, English users sometimes add in advance or other elements to emphasize preparing beforehand. (See also for sure in "confirm for sure" - people do this a lot.)

A related phenomenon is adding the prefix pre- to forms of prepare. The OED (under "pre-, prefix") notes both pre-prepare and pre-prepared with examples like these:

1850 Message from President U.S. 426 It was not commenced; but some stone[s] were pre-prepared, and also the wood-work of a coffer dam.

1993 Personal Computer World Nov. 442/2 Once programmed, an OLR dials in, grabs what it has been told to and uploads anything else which was pre-prepared offline.

1867 Times 6 Sept. 7/4 Why, therefore, should I rob them of the fruit of their labours, and of the toil which they had in preparing those necessarily pre-prepared addresses for the different sections?

1996 Daily Tel. 29 May 15/4 I am then given her limited, pre-prepared version of the recent events.

Merriam-Webster similarly defines "preprepared" (no hyphen, adjective) as

: prepared in advance

preprepared ingredients

microwaved a preprepared meal

a preprepared public announcement

Sometimes, there may be a sense that one stage of preparation (preparing ingredients) precedes another stage of preparation (preparing/cooking/microwaving the meal). Other times (the public announcement) preprepared seems to emphasize that the preparation was done well in advance, without specifying a step before a preparation.

Whether pre-prepare is a better option for you depends on whether you perceive the added pre- as emphatic or clarifying or as redundant.