Windows 7 Problem

Hi Guys

My friend has a Dell Inspiron laptop.Its configuration is i3 processor,2gb ram,320gb hdd and no video card.He only use it to access the internet.The softwares installed are like chrome,media player,MS-Office,KAV etc.Windows 7 Ultimate is installed in it,of the little what he remembers.It was working fine but since the past week it became very very slow.Few minutes ago when we opened chrome,it took like 5-10 minutes in the processing and still it didnt open,then we opened the task manager but it showed not responding.Anyways we turned off the laptop from the power button and when we restarted it using start windows normally,a black screen came.We waited for few minutes then selected start windows in cmd mode.It was loading the system 32 files but it stopped at some driver file and then we again restarted it this time it itself started in startup repairs.It took another 5-10 minutes and then it said if we wanted to restore it to some earlier point we clicked ok,but again its been like 40 minutes but the process hasnt completed.We are thinking to cancel it now.When we restart the laptop below the dell inspiron starting screen there are options of setup and boot and both of them works just fine

How to rectify it?Formatting is not an option since there are some important files on the desktop.He never set a restore point so do you think we should wait here?

Thanx

Hell billubakra and welcome to Seven Forums.

None of the following suggestions will result in formatting the hard drive. They are all designed to preserve user data. Are you able to access Safe Mode from the Advanced Boot Options menu?

Advanced Boot Options

If yes, you could see if any system files have become damaged or corrupt by running a system file checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two.) If problems are found, run the scan 3 times and reboot the computer after each scan.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

You can also try a startup repair. It's suggested to run the repair 3 times and reboot the computer after each one.

Startup Repair

You could also see if there are any application conflicts by running a clean startup (AKA clean boot.)

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

One of the Forum experts also prepared these troubleshooting tutorials that have some additional suggestions.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

If nothing helps you might consider a repair install. A repair install will attempt to fix your currently installed Windows 7 while preserving your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers, etc. A repair install takes about an hour and if successful you'll have to reinstall Windows Updates. That could take another hour or more.

Repair Install

marsmimar said:

Hell billubakra and welcome to Seven Forums.

None of the following suggestions will result in formatting the hard drive. They are all designed to preserve user data. Are you able to access Safe Mode from the Advanced Boot Options menu?

Advanced Boot Options

If yes, you could see if any system files have become damaged or corrupt by running a system file checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two.) If problems are found, run the scan 3 times and reboot the computer after each scan.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

You can also try a startup repair. It's suggested to run the repair 3 times and reboot the computer after each one.

Startup Repair

You could also see if there are any application conflicts by running a clean startup (AKA clean boot.)

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

One of the Forum experts also prepared these troubleshooting tutorials that have some additional suggestions.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

If nothing helps you might consider a repair install. A repair install will attempt to fix your currently installed Windows 7 while preserving your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers, etc. A repair install takes about an hour and if successful you'll have to reinstall Windows Updates. That could take another hour or more.

Repair Install

Thanx for replying.When we select boot option a boot menu opens up,which has these options

+Hard Drive
CD/DVD/CD-RW Devices
Removable Devices
Network
Diagnostics

<Enter Setup>

If we run Diagnostics,it completes 100% and then says

Error Code 0146
Msg:Error Code 2000-0146
Msg:Hard Drive 0-self test log contains previous error(s) the given error ciode and message can be used by technical support to diagnose the problem
Do you want to continue testing?

Then we select No

How to start it in safe mode?

If we let it start without choosing setup or boot options it says either to select repair or to start it normally,but none of that works

When we select boot option a boot menu opens up, which has these options
+Hard Drive
CD/DVD/CD-RW Devices
Removable Devices
Network
Diagnostics
<Enter Setup>

How are you getting to this boot option menu? I'm not familiar with it.

For the Advanced Boot Option menu:
With the computer off, press the power button. As soon as you turn the power on immediately start clicking the F8 key (top of keyboard) and keep clicking it until you see the Advanced Boot Options menu. Use your up/down arrows to highlight Safe Mode and click Enter.



Are you not able to access this menu?

marsmimar said:

Hell billubakra and welcome to Seven Forums.

None of the following suggestions will result in formatting the hard drive. They are all designed to preserve user data. Are you able to access Safe Mode from the Advanced Boot Options menu?

Advanced Boot Options

If yes, you could see if any system files have become damaged or corrupt by running a system file checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two.) If problems are found, run the scan 3 times and reboot the computer after each scan.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

You can also try a startup repair. It's suggested to run the repair 3 times and reboot the computer after each one.

Startup Repair

You could also see if there are any application conflicts by running a clean startup (AKA clean boot.)

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

One of the Forum experts also prepared these troubleshooting tutorials that have some additional suggestions.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

If nothing helps you might consider a repair install. A repair install will attempt to fix your currently installed Windows 7 while preserving your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers, etc. A repair install takes about an hour and if successful you'll have to reinstall Windows Updates. That could take another hour or more.

Repair Install

marsmimar said:

When we select boot option a boot menu opens up, which has these options
+Hard Drive
CD/DVD/CD-RW Devices
Removable Devices
Network
Diagnostics
<Enter Setup>

How are you getting to this boot option menu? I'm not familiar with it.

For the Advanced Boot Option menu:
With the computer off, press the power button. As soon as you turn the power on immediately start clicking the F8 key (top of keyboard) and keep clicking it until you see the Advanced Boot Options menu. Use your up/down arrows to highlight Safe Mode and click Enter.



Are you not able to access this menu?

Thanx for replying.I got to that menu after i pressed F12 as it said boot menu on the starting screen.Anyways i pressed F8 as you mentioned,now it shows the screen which has these options

Windows7/Vista/Server (Pointer)
Windows7/Vista/Server
Windows7/Vista/Server (Debug - Default mode)
Windows7/Vista/Server (Debug - Legacy mode)
Windows7/Vista/Server (No SLIC - Pointer)
Windows7/Vista/Server (No SLIC)
Windows NT/2000/XP
Loader Help

Use up/down keys to highlight an entry.Press ENTER or 'b' to boot.Press 'c' for a command-line.

Also what about the error message that showed up after the diagnostic process?Anything to worry about?

That's still not the Advanced Boot Options menu you should be seeing (post # 4 screenshot.) Try once more please. As soon as you power on the computer immediately start clicking the F8 key (about one click every second) and keep clicking until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears. If you still can't access the Advanced Boot Options menu then there is something seriously wrong with the computer. It may require the use of a rescue disk so you can backup your important data and then reformat the hard drive.

I know you don't want to do that so it's really important to know for sure that the Advanced Boot Options menu cannot be accessed.

marsmimar said:

That's still not the Advanced Boot Options menu you should be seeing (post # 4 screenshot.) Try once more please. As soon as you power on the computer immediately start clicking the F8 key (about one click every second) and keep clicking until the Advanced Boot Options menu appears. If you still can't access the Advanced Boot Options menu then there is something seriously wrong with the computer. It may require the use of a rescue disk so you can backup your important data and then reformat the hard drive.

I know you don't want to do that so it's really important to know for sure that the Advanced Boot Options menu cannot be accessed.

Thanx for replying.No i still cant access advanced boot option

I think I would try a repair install. The link is in post # 2. It appears that there is more damage to the hard drive than the usual repair options would be able to fix. The repair install should save your data while fixing the operating system.

If the repair install doesn't work, then you might have to follow the instructions in post # 7 of this thread. This person couldn't start his computer and needed to backup his important files. He used a Linux progam called Peppermint3.

Windows 7 Registry Problem

One guy suggested pushing the d key several times.

It wont take you to the screen that marsmimar wants immediately it will give you other options scroll down to the bottom option it should say something to the effect of "advanced menu"

It might not say that exactly but i am pretty sure it has ADVANCED somewhere in there THAN it should Redirect you to the screen that marsmimar wants.

Sorry i am not more specific but i haven't done this often.

This should work for inspiron laptops from dell. Just a new option to try :)

Edit: For me i did it trying to get me to hardware diagnostics screen but i somehow ended up at advanced boot option screen.

marsmimar said:

I think I would try a repair install. The link is in post # 2. It appears that there is more damage to the hard drive than the usual repair options would be able to fix. The repair install should save your data while fixing the operating system.

If the repair install doesn't work, then you might have to follow the instructions in post # 7 of this thread. This person couldn't start his computer and needed to backup his important files. He used a Linux progam called Peppermint3.

Windows 7 Registry Problem

Thanx for replying.How is that the HDD got damaged?So it was the damaged HDD that caused the laptop to be slow?Is the installation from scratch easy?I am thinking to download Windows 7 Ultimate x86 and then install it.Can you please tell me the proper steps and how to burn the .iso to a DVD?If we install it from scratch then can the HDD be saved?

computergeekguy said:

One guy suggested pushing the d key several times.

It wont take you to the screen that marsmimar wants immediately it will give you other options scroll down to the bottom option it should say something to the effect of "advanced menu"

It might not say that exactly but i am pretty sure it has ADVANCED somewhere in there THAN it should Redirect you to the screen that marsmimar wants.

Sorry i am not more specific but i haven't done this often.

This should work for inspiron laptops from dell. Just a new option to try :)

Edit: For me i did it trying to get me to hardware diagnostics screen but i somehow ended up at advanced boot option screen.

Thanx for replying.I am only getting the options i posted in my previous posts.Yes i tried it SEVERAL times but it didnt open I will try it one more time though