Having Trouble Running "System File Checker (SFC)"!

Am I correct that you have unplugged the secondary hard drive?

I have NOT changed anything, yet. There is only one SATA HDD and one SATA DVD/CD optical drive on the system, the only exceptions are the “EMPTY” media slots that show up (like if I used diskpart for instance) and then there is any USB flash or two that I happen to have connected from time to time - but NOT at this time. Just two physical drives the HDD w/boot and system partitions on it, and the DVD/CD drive. (The previously mentioned cloning was done using another computer system.)

Do you have a dedicated graphics card?

No, I do not.

Your system specs say no, you are using the on board graphics.

Correct!

Please go back into BIOS and press F1 which should be help and it should show you all of the options. I am looking for which key to set optimized Defaults or just Defaults on some boards. It is usually F5 on most boards.

Yes, I do know where it is, it does refer to it as “optimized defaults” if I recall correctly. I’ve tried this several times. I’ve also changed the Li-ion battery out with a fresh one and cleared the CMOS at the same time, making sure to fully discharge everything appropriately in-between steps. The old battery tested almost a full charge actually, but I just tossed it anyway.

You appear to have on board graphics disabled and have it set to PCIe or PCI.

I thought that that seemed incorrect also, and I was wondering if you would see the same thing, or I would have asked. I haven't tried altering it from the original or "supposed optimized settings" I set it to previously, like I mentioned above.

So I investigated further and there is some text that is tunicated off of the ends of the possible "states" for each option - I see this NOW anyway...

The options for the "order" of graphics devices to use is either the selected one (1) PCIe -> PCI -> iGPU or (2) iGPU -> PCI -> PCIe. So I'm under the understanding that it will first try to use the first one in the selected set then move on to the second and finally the third. This would mean option (1) is ideally suited for the default, so that If in my case it passes the first two options and goes to the onboard graphics IC. Then If tomorrow I plug in a PCI grapics card it would be the option used since the on-board GPU is the last option, and I'll get to use my PCI card without having to select anything differently. And of course if I had a PCI-express and a PCI card, unless I have a reason to change it purposely, It's best to use the far superior PCIe option, which would be the first choice. I think that that makes sense. (Somewhat like the boot order for devices)

BUT THEN we both noticed that the "OnChip and PCIe VGA Selection" option seemingly was set to "Disable OnChip VGA"! Sounds totally wrong...right?! I checked the available options and find that there are two options, what I believe to be the default option: (1), which actually reads in full as follows: "Disable OnChip VGA if have PCIe VGA" . So if I had a PCIe plugged in without changing anything, it would disable the OnChipVGA, which would be good since PCIe would be the selected graphics device in the above descrived order also, right?! Then option (2) is "Both Exist and OnChip VGA by Frame Buffer Select" I'm not sure about the exact meaning of selecting this state, but it sounds like it allows the Frame Buffer state to choose the selected graphics device or else both can run at the same time possibly? You surely understand this part better than I, but it seems to indicate he default options are selected and correct when you can read the whole thing (IMHO, at least - I may be way off, and I'm simply offering my interpretation.) Tell me what you think now in light of this new information. What's your opinion and what would you like me to try next or revisit if you disagree in anyway?!!!


I got hopeful there for a little bit anyway!

If you think it's time to "call it" I'll go for a clean install, don't worry! I will need a little bit of help with that though, but I've salvaged all the serial numbers and installation programs I can, So I am willing to cut my S/W losses. If that's your suggestion, I'll elaborate on what I might ned some help with, but I'll let you make that call. I'm honestly at peace either way as long as I can pull of the clean install.

Your thoughts?

I've made several types of backups including an image on a WD MyBook right when this whole thing started and then the cloned drive (which dropped in acts exactly identical to the original HDD it was cloned from), and then I've copied files and whole profiles on flash drives and so on and so forth!

I ALWAYS backup the whole registry if and when I open it via regedit for checking whatever I'm checking for whatever reason. So I'm going to search the HDD for a chance copy of even an OLD registry! Also I think I was wrong before about the backup registry being the one that "Last Known Good Config" uses, from the wording in greg's tutorial, so there could be another backup of the registry.

This is a bit preemptive, but I'm wondering about my reinstall options since it detects a Win-7 installation on the drive, the update disk might let me save it to a windows.old folder and reinstall windows with the same prod Key? I've never tried that, but I might explore that or something along those lines a little bit further.