Windows 7: System Restore has encountered an error. Help.

So, a few hours ago I was plugging in some headphones without looking, and ended up sliding it into a USB port. Turns out this is a bad thing, because as soon as I did my computer restart and now I can hardly do anything. The theme matches that of 'safe mode', the screen is dark and won't get brighter, there's no sound, I can hardly run anything. And definitely not two things at once.

I just want to system restore (it should probably be noted that I do not have any return points :/) but when I go to the System Restore System Properties window I get a message saying:



'There was an unexpected error in the property page:

System Restore encountered an error. Please try to run System Restore again. (0x81000203)

Please close the property page and try again.'

When I try to do anything with System Restore in Safe Mode I get the VSS error message. I just don't know what to do.

I would do a clean reinstallation, but Windows 7 was already on my computer when I bought it, Best Buy put it on for me. So I don't have a CD or anything. I mean I have the product key, that's about it. Is there anything I can do with that?

Thank you.

Try method two of System Restore.

Hopefully that might work.

This problem sounds odd though. How exactly did this happen? Step by step?

You may also want to run a disk check (Disk Check).

Oli

Well, I talked to my sister, who's a bit more computer knowledgeable, and she says the whole headphone bit was just freak timing. I can see that, because the whole situation does seem odd.

Anyway, I can't do method two of system restore because I get the 'Volume Shadow Copy Service Error'. I've also already run Disk Check to no avail. Or perhaps I missed something, but nothing noticeable came up with it.

Anyway step-by-step:
Computer restarts
Computer comes back on with a dimmer screen and no sound. I can't brighten the screen (only in safe mode), and when I run Windows regularly a window pops up saying ASR Audio Device not Found.
I have no internet connection.
I cannot System Restore (or at least, everywhere I've looked I've tried and to no avail)
When running windows regularly, I can run a few programs but it only lasts for about 5 minutes until everything freezes over, and I have to restart.
Also when running normally, Windows theme looks exactly like it would in 'safe mode' except nothing it bigger.
In 'safe mode' I can run things all right.

I do hope that's enough. Sorry if I'm a bit vague.

This seams likely to me to be a hardware failure.

What is the make and model of your PC? If you're lucky there might be a recovery partition we can use.

If your computer is still in warranty you may want to consider contacting the manufacturer for help; there's only so much we can do with hardware related problems.

Oli