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Repair Install - thoughts on RAM and Recovery Partition
Background
August 9th Windows Update fail (during the reboot to install updates the machine hangs) All the painful details can be read here: August Windows Update corrupts dlls/netframe?
Startup Repair does not fix
System Restore rolls back to 'current' and all, about a dozen restore points, also fail
Nothing works, so I go to sleep. Then the PC the next morning boots up fine. All users are gone but my personal admin, software works fine, but cannot install failed updates.
Follow all MS Support suggestions on MS site. The only news from all of that is permissions are messed up so I need to enable the hidden admin and sfc /scannow finds 5 corrupt dlls it cannot fix.
Work with MS support, well onto second tier, no help.
Work with Seven Forums and nothing intalls those dang updates.
Always Error 8000FFFF and sometimes Code 643.
Try to do repair install twice, gets to 100%, says cannot complete, rolls back
This is a Dell XPS 8300, 8 weeks old, W7 Home premium, SP1 64 bit that runs vital business software, never on the internet disconnected by cable, except for windows update, when I see they have come to my other machine.
But just in case I have run the full array of security checks with the assitance of a Kasperky Analyst. Kaspersky IS 2011, KIS Virus Removal Tool, Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, VipreRescue, all come up clean.
SO........
I have read everything I can find on repair installs, here, at MS and everthing that google can feed me.
ALL data is triple backed up, second HD, flash or CD BU for the super important files and all data at Carbonite. This is not about data but about saving some programs that run my business that are very difficult to reactivate after you reinstall because the vendor has new products they want me to buy that are less appropriate for my business at infinity times the price (paid for versus $1200 subscription fee and forever, $50 a month)
I have found the group here to provide excellent advice, better than the MS W7 forum, so don't think anything no matter how small will insult me. If you can think of any reason a 100% install would fail, even a remote one, sock it to me.
- ANY oddball tips that could be important I may have read but not absorbed, not come accross or are 'once in a blue moon' things, would be greatly appreciated. If it only appears on one line in a thread then I missed it, between the PC, the earthquake center being 25 miles from here and now a friggin hurricane, I might have read it but not remember it, so again ANY ODDBALL TIPS please.
- I do a clean boot, disconnect all unnecessary devices (really just the printer). My RAM question, , I reseated the RAM between try one and two, but both times I did leave all RAM in. All diagnostics show no issues but I get conflicting answers as to the value of removing 2 or 3 of the 4. Some says if it tests out, does not matter, some say remove 2 of 4 RAM others say 3 of 4. What say you?
- There are 3 partitions, all healthy, the 39mb Dell in position one, recovery in 2 and the C: OS in the third, nothing unallocated. Some advise to delete RECOVERY, if this fails I don't need RECOVERY as I will need a clean install. Some say this partition is occasionally the problem. What say you? Leave RECOVERY PARTITION, delete it or move it to the right of C: OS?
- The MS second tier said there was no possibility a 100% install fail would be because of a Master Boot Record Format Error, but if dlls are corrupted, I say it is (but with nothing to back it except that anything can go wrong in a PC) Is there any downside to creating a new partition for the install? (The clean command works but did it really?)
Thank you!
The obligatory reminder of details
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name CROSSROADSINN
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model XPS 8300
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2300 CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A03, 2/15/2011
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"
User Name CrossroadsInn\CRI Office
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 5.85 GB
Available Physical Memory 4.17 GB
Total Virtual Memory 14.6 GB
Available Virtual Memory 13.0 GB
Page File Space 8.79 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys