Windows 7: Yesterday's Adventure With Problems

My computer had been running slow for the past few days. Yesterday I started have multiple problems. I decided to restore my Macrium Image. My PC was running so slow that it was taking hours for the restore. Midway through it just crashed. I reinstalled Windows but had no backup. It suddenly hit me that since my PC is running good, I will try the Macrium Restore again. Sure enough it restored perfectly. == I just thought I would post this as it might help someone in the future.

That is good to know.
A new way to repair install (sort of) without having to do EVERYTHING after Windows installs.

Sounds like a major registry glitch or malware of sorts which was removed when Windows wiped the disk.

2 thumbs up!

Thanks for sharing that bigmck. Re-installing Windows only takes 15 minutes on an SSD, but it is all the updates that take forever on a slower internet connection like mine. So restoring a system image over the new windows installation sounds good to me.

That sounds very strange. It could not have been a Windows problem because the Macrium restore does not use Windows. And even if you used the WinPE recovery DVD, it is a different Windows.

I suspect that you had an intermittent hardware problem which, unfortunately, may reoccur. Keep watching it.

See it this sounds like a HD problem. -- When I attempted to reinstall Windows the first time, it would not work because the partition showed "Unallocated". It could not Format due to an Error Message. I then tried a couple more times and it finally showed Primary instead of Unallocated. It installed fine. I have been considering a new HD for a while. Do you think it is time I buy it now instead of waiting until the price goes down?

If it is a desktop, I would just install a second HDD as backup (if you order one e.g. from Newegg, do not forget the Sata cable). There I would configure a 60GB (bigger if you have big games) partition for the OS which you leave on standby in case the other HDD really fails. Then 1 partition for data and transfer my data out of the blinking disk. If there is a good chunk left, you can use it for a partition to which you can image.

On the blinking disk I would run a chkdsk /r

Might be worth checking the drive. Crystaldiskinfo will show any SMART data. Crystal Dew World

Make sure the disk is plugged correctly to data and power cables, then if possible wipe it clean, then restore the macrium image.