Windows 7: Windows boots very slow and runs slow after booting

Yes abyssal go with Gregs answer mate and Greg what about a Seatools run and I have found the Partition Wizard surface test quite good too for picking up a damaged disk?

Sure if his HD maker doesn't have it's own diagnostics then Seatools is good, PW surface test also a good secondary test. Since he has an OS he can also read SMART data first which is a strong clue.

Hum Greg I shall have to get clued up on that stuff

Okay, It's definitely a HDD problem. I'm not able to do anything on the hard drive because I get that error every time I try to boot. I removed the HDD from the laptop and inserted it to another PC, gives exactly the same error.

So, my concerns now are:

1. I can't buy a hard drive at this point right now, so I'll just try to install Windows 7 ON a USB stick and use that stick as a hard drive (lol).

2. How to get my data back.

Windows 7 will not install to a flash stick.

What were the results of the HD Diagnostic extended CD scan you were advised to run to determine the condition and possibly repair the HD?

You can try a rescue disk to retrieve your files as shown in Step 9 in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start.

Okay, here are the news. I can't do that HD Diagnostic extended you linked me to because I simply can't buy a blank CD at this point right now -_-.

I ran CHKDSK in cmd and restarted the laptop. It found some bad system files and apparently repaired some stuff on the HDD. There is one problem tho, disk checking takes like ages. I started it 6 hours ago and it barely checked %20 of the HDD, so I don't know if I should leave it like that or interrupt it.

The good news is that I managed to boot it and save all my important data on a USB stick, so if it doesn't get repaired I can just buy a new HDD. Until then I have a 16 GB USB stick and I managed to install Ubuntu on it and use it as a temporary HDD.

Will come back with future updates after the CHKDSK process finishes.

Good news for the files you saved
I wouldn't interrupt the disk check if i were you. Leave it till it finishes buy itself.

CD's are 5 for $2 on the wall rack by the camera dept at Walgreens.

You can also run most maker's HD diagnostics using Hiren's BootCD From USB Flash Drive (Pen Drive) » www.hiren.info

There's just no store nearby here.

Okay so after nearly 24 hours of disk checking (lol), Windows tells me there were about 3000 bad clusters that are now repaired. After the reboot I got a message like: Checking drive C:, The drive is clean. It seems to be working fine at this moment, I'll just test it some more and come back if any problems appear.

Disk Check by itself is not sufficient, especially with all those bad sectors. You need to run the manufacturer's HD Diagnostics bootable CD or flash stick repair scan.