Windows 7: Hard drive would not boot: Overuse of System Mechanic Pro?

Good news is my notebook has recovered.

One lesson learned is I need to do a better recovery (it was insufficient they way I did it)....had to image my old hard disk to the new one, then copy my most current My Documents, etc to move on.

What happened: Windows 7 could not boot - had a bad sector. Several possibilities, but my overuse of System Mechanic Pro is the leading one....I repaired the registers prior to the bad boot. After the register repair, the keyboard did not respond...backspace would have strange characters, caps would not respond, etc. I rebooted and Windows would not come up.



Utilities like System Mechanic Pro like to train you into fixing things as soon as it detects them...a friend commented it was making me as OCD as Howard Hughes. A few here are not high on SMP and I'm leaning more in that direction, but suspect I should just not worry about tuneups and fixes as much.

Two other possibilities is I caught a worm/virus - none detected. I'm also using an SSD.

HP has the worst load of factory bloatware of any make, which corrupts and throttles the first featherlight Windows OS. Most tech enthusiasts would not run such an install but would Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. Everything you need is in the blue link.

Until then you can Clean Up Factory Bloatware - Windows 7 Forums. However the amount of corrupting bloatware and useless factory utilties that HP lards in can actually compound corruption by it's uninstall, hence you must monitor System file integrity while you proceed. If after cleanup it doesn't meet the Windows 7 standard of instantaneous performance with zero hangs then I would reinstall.

I would not use any tweaking or optimizing suite with Windows 7 at all, as we regularly see the OS ruined by these. The tools recommended in the tutorials will maintain a reinstall perfectly if you guard what you install and run a Clean Boot.

^ I'll be studying the links above.

That and making sure I have a good backup.

Got a silly question: Will the above links and the HP CDs be enough for a clean install? Like most notebook purchases, I don't have a Win 7 install CD. Assuming the answer is yes, I've got some work ahead.

As stated everything you need is in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

Let us know if you have any other questions and how it goes.

You can download an ISO of the same version of Windows 7 that was factory installed (there is a link in the tutorial that gregrocker linked), and burn that to DVD. The COA on your notebook will satisfy the legitimacy of the installation. You need to make sure that you burn a CD of all the relevant drivers for your particular notebook (visit their website to find out what you need) and install the drivers after you have installed Windows 7.
That will give you a fully functional clean install.

(gregrocker hit "Submit" before I did...")

My sticker has part of the code rubbed off.

Hope I can somehow authenticate I bought Win 7

Is there software to authenticate my Win 7 and give the necessary code?

BTW, the rubber legs came off, then the sticker's print got smeared.

Would the Product ID listed in Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System be the same as what was on the sticker on the back of my notebook?

The Product ID is not the same as the COA Product Key used to activate a Clean Reinstall of Windows 7. However it might help your OEM Tech Support provide you with replacement key if you contact them.

Unfortunately the Product Key which can be audited with an app like Belarc Advisor is the Factory mass-activation key which will not activate after clean reinstall.

If the OEM Tech Support will not replace or retrieve the key for you, then your only option to activate Clean Reinstall may be to backup and restore the Factory SLP activation - which is not supported by these forums. However you can learn how to do this by googling "how to backup and restore Windows 7 OEM license."

Make your Recovery disks and keep onboard your Recovery partition which both will auto-activate in case any problems arise with restoring activation on Clean Reinstall.

^ Thank you.

I'll contact HP Tech Support and hopefully they can provide a replacement key.