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

Yes, John, I did indeed-e-o run Memtest86+ already, using no less than five (5) passes in EVERY possible DIMM-to-socket configuration, as there are two OCZ DDR3 SDRAM sticks installed in two sockets. I've also reseated ALL the connections in the system, and done a thorough "de-dusting!" I've cloned it onto another HDD and it does the exact same thing when I ‘drop that one in’ in place of the original HDD.

I can’t do a Repair Install because I can't get into the Windows OS environment in any of it’s incarnations. And while it probably is of no concern to you or anyone else, it IS a 100% legitimate, retail Windows install that I personally preformed on this custom system - but I have no product key sticker. So, when taken along with the fact that there are unreplaceable (many rather expensive) applications installed on my system, this offers a bit of a problem for the clean install route! BUT, if it DOES come to ‘that,’ are there any scripts that you know of, which would run under the limited cmd.exe environment(s) for which I have access, that could decrypt my original Windows Product Key? I'd really prefer to steer clear of anything I can't READ without decompiling a executable file, IOW no “program” that might be preforming any number of nefarious acts completely unbeknownst to me! It should only take a pretty short script...possibly even a BATCH file (if you can remember those dinosaurs!) to decrypt the key if someone is familiar with the technology.

And as you've described all the update woes of others like myself, I should reemphasize that that is part of the reason I'd like to know what caused this catastrophic failure of my system! Because, I very well may bend over and take the loss of my software and settings, et cetera, figure out my product key, go through the clean reinstall, take the time to pick through my drive for any salvageables, update all the way up to present day - picking through the updates as best as I can, only to get the exact same problem at some point during or right after the whole process! This is another reason why I've been trying to ride out the weeks of going through all of this...Believe me I'd love nothing more than to be done with this system!

Hello, Ztruker, and I thank you very much for your help!

Yes, that is precisely the set of switches that I was referring to in my previous post to ICIT2LOL (when I sayed there was a mechanism for DISM.exe to remove this specific flag/lock that SFC is getting hung-up over.) However, the problem is, if you read into the finer details of my issue, I cannot get into Windows in any way, shape or form. If you'll read the quoted text that you sent me, you'll see why the command would not create a so-called 'endless loop' for the individual that posted that message, namely, they COULD load Windows (using Safemode). Thus, the flag/lock is removed when the system is rebooted and THEY never need to enter startup repair/recovery console in order to get a command prompt and then execute SFC, while I, on the other hand, have to do so if I want to have access to any type of command prompt. So the lock/flag is reset at restart by your recommended command, only to be set again before I have any access to anything to be able to run SFC again! That is my intrupretation of the underlying theory...

But, I have no gripes about trying something that has such a low "risk" of harming anything just because it seems that it wouldn't work in the realm of the theoretical though! So I did try it, but kept getting errors. First I mistakenly ran it using "C:\" out of habit, which is actually the boot partition while D:\ is my system drive. It automatically recognized that and ended with an error code (2). Correcting my mistake I tried again and got another error, which I don't remember but was logged somewhere, so I might need to pull that logfile to figure out what's going on. I thought I would try changing the command prompt location to one of the other drives, rather than running it from the "X:\" ramdrive, (who knows why, maybe there's a copy of DISM.exe on the ramdrive and it's acting differently for some reqason!?) and I received another error - a different error ID number each time. And I think I tried to add the /online switch, because I was hoping for anything to work, whether it made sense to me or not - no dice! I tried restarting again and whether I tried to boot to Windows (Normally or Safemode(s)) or booted into startup repair's cmd.exe there was no discernible change to my described problem. SFC just barked the same message back to me when I executed it.

Maybe you could suggest a particular order that you believe to be more likely to get me somewhere. I can boot into the command prompt from the Window 7 installation DVD, system repair/recovery console or using "(F8) - Repair My Computer". I've always been a little unclear as to the difference between the last two methods I just mentioned, but I know the "F8" route asks for a username/password, but getting into the system repair/recovery console before that does not. Clearly there is some difference.

Any thoughts on how I might utilize this tool more effectively in my particular case?

I appreciate your time! :)

ICIT2LOL said:

Memtest86+ already, using no less than five (5) passes in EVERY possible DIMM-to-socket configuration,

Hello Mike mate it reads no less than five passes but the recommended number of passes is at the very least 8 anything less is just not worth running it. I know it is tedious so was it 8 passes??

Oh that pic of the bike I wanted to show you

Well, I could point out that eight (8) is in fact NOT less than five (5), so the recommended number of passes is in perfect mathematical agreement with my answer, but I won't (sneaky how I got that one in by saying that I wasn't going to say it, huh?!) But, in all seriousness, the reason that I wrote it that using that particular wording is because I first ran the memory for five passes before touching the sticks physically. Then I switched the placement of the two memory sticks in the two slots and ran it five times. Then I ran stick one in slot one for five passes, then swapped stick one for stick two (5x again), then repeated individual sticks in second slot (5x each), finally returned them to the the original placement and ran it for five passes. Ergo, the two stick, as they were originally positioned, received 10 passes (and recall: 10>8), while all the other possible stic-to-socket combos were given five (5) passes each. But as "it reads" I was never asked to do the swapping, that's all just above and beyond, as were the additional 3 passes of the memory as it was, right? I'll do more, but I didn't think that this level of factual detail was fully appreciated. More is ALWAYS better in this case, but I think eight is arbitrarily chosen by someone that thinks that eight (8) bit's per byte means that eight passes carries it past the numerical digit threshold in a base ten (decimal) system of probability (which is actually a pretty trivial basis for choosing a threshold.)

I'll run it more in the meantime when I have nothing else I might be trying at the time. The more passes the better my odds of catching a mistake of course. It still seems remarkable that the SDRAM would execute, I don't know, millions of processes maybe, some massive number anyway, and NOT ONCE make a mistake while testing them, only to slip up EVERY SINGLE time I try to boot Windows (specifically), which has to be near the one hundredth time by now I'm sure. If even one of those times it actually did load correctly or get a hair farther than it does now, then I could reasonably say that probability has been demonstrated to be potentially involved and I should run as many passes as it takes maybe! But that's just my way of seeing it. Yeah, I guess you could put me in the opinionated category. So what! What's everybody look at! Go back to what you were all doing!...... J/K!


<-----(time-elapse)----->


I've run it eight more times now, which is a total of 18, over twice the recommended number of passes to be used as a minimum. No errors were found with the memory modules.



Oh, and that’s a helluva sweet looking bike from the images you’ve posted, John! I’ll TRY to keep my posts OT as much as I can, by continuing that discussion via PM (ME staying OT... I know...LOL....Ha ha he ho...)

Welcome back, Ztruker! :) I have tried booting from the Retail Windows Installation DVD (Home Premium, 64 bit) identical to my system, using the command prompt I did the following:

======================================================
Booted from Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit installation DVD:
======================================================



HDD:

• Part 1: C: System Reserved (Boot Partition) [Active]
• Part 2: D: Windows System

DVD:

• E: (Windows Home Premium 64-bit Installation DVD)

Media card drives (Empty):

• F:
• G:
• H:
• I:

Flash Drive:

• J: (for saving log files)

Ramdrive:

• X: "Boot" (created by WinRE)

======================================================

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
 
 
X:\Sources>d:
 
D:\>sfc /scannow
 
Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.
 
 
There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete.  
Restart Windows and run sfc again.
 
D:\>notepad.exe
 
D:\>dism /image:D:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
 
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.1.7600.16385
 
Image Version: 6.1.7601.18489
 
The scratch directory size might be insufficient to perform this operation. 
This can cause unexpected behavior.
Use the /ScratchDir option to point to a folder with sufficient scratch space. The recommended size is at least 1024 MB.
 
Reverting pending actions from the image...
 
Error: 0x800f082f
 
An error occurred reverting the pending actions from the image.
For more information, review the log file.
 
The DISM log file can be found at X:\windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log
 
D:\>copy x:\windows\logs\dism\dism.log j:\dism[1].log
        1 file(s) copied.
 
D:\>exit

The log file is, or SHOULD BE attached and named dism[1].log.

I also tried using Windows Advanced Boot Options Menu (using F8 directly following POST). It seems to behave the same way, and neither changed my problem. Here is the second run through...I quickly looked though it and I think it may be the identical results. The disk/partition configuration is identical only the DVD drive is empty this time.

===========================================================
Booted from Windows 7 Home

Premium 64-bit HDD via [F8] >> (Repair Computer) >>(admin acct credentials):
===========================================================

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
 
 
X:\windows\system32>notepad.exe
 
X:\windows\system32>D:
 
D:\>sfc /scannow
 
Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.
 
 
There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete.  
Restart Windows and run sfc again.
 
D:\>dism /image:D:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
 
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 6.1.7600.16385
 
Image Version: 6.1.7601.18489
 
The scratch directory size might be insufficient to perform this operation. 
This can cause unexpected behavior.
Use the /ScratchDir option to point to a folder with sufficient scratch space. The recommended size is at least 1024 MB.
 
Reverting pending actions from the image...
 
Error: 0x800f082f
 
An error occurred reverting the pending actions from the image.
For more information, review the log file.
 
The DISM log file can be found at X:\windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log
 
D:\>copy x:\windows\logs\dism\dism.log j:\dism[2].log
        1 file(s) copied.
 
D:\>exit

The log file is attached as dism[2].log...(Hopefully!)

I tried to use the "/ScratchDir" switch a few times (unsaved) and tried to use somewhere on the main HDD system partition (tried both the root and making a new directory) since there is several hundred GB of free space available to no avail. (The total memory installed in the system is 4GB.) I've tried so many ideas that I don't really remember what it replied with...some error code number I think, but I don't think a reason was explicitly given.