Solved Factory Restored son's laptop, now have Hard disk error and more..

[ComputerNoob23]

Okay so, my son is not the best at taking care of things that he owns and now his laptop is showing signs. It was messing up constantly whether it was randomly shutting down or going into safe mode on its own. So I factory restored it and now after it has completed his laptop is telling me there is a hard disk error and also that windows defender won't turn on after multiple attempts and restarting the laptop. Please help me, I really don't want to have to buy a new laptop for him as he cannot take care of his things.
A list of his installed programs were:
Gyazo (Screenshot software because of being staff on a minecraft server)
Minecraft
Osbuddy for runescape
Nortons (Antivirus software)
Skype
Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
iTunes
Teamspeak 3 client
Java (32+64bit)



That's pretty much everything I can think of that he had installed on his pc.

Also, he said his wifi shut down all of a sudden before he told be about the issue. He said, and I quote, "A kid threatened to boot me when I was playing CoD Black Ops II, so I left the match, when I opened mozilla firefox and loaded youtube for music, the wifi wouldn't connect then it wouldn't show connections even when I plugged in the laptop VIA Ethernet cord."

 

[Pendaws]

Mmmm, I would NOT have Norton's on ANY machine I own or have built. You DON'T need Java 32bit, I run all my 64bit machines without and have no issues at all, I just use 64bit Java.
I would suggest you do a CLEAN boot without all that OTHER stuff loading and see if things will work without them all.
This link should help you sort it out.

How to perform a clean boot in Windows

 

[ComputerNoob23]

Just did that, the only thing that it changed was that the wifi was again useable, still have the hard disk problem and windows defender still won't come on

 

[Pendaws]

Have you done a File check? Try this: Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files

You could download this programme and see if it will detect any hard drive errors? Dmitriy Primochenko Online
The programme should pick up any errors but, to repair them, you would need to buy it.

 

[gregrocker]

Factory Recovery is still the worst possible install of Win7 one can have. Better to do a perfect http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164. You'll get and keep a perfect install to the exact extent you stick with the tools and methods given.

Rightclick on the wireless icon in bottom right system tray to Troubleshoot Problems. Specify the wireless adapter. What does it find?

Enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3)
then Check for Updates, install all Important and Optional Updates, with reboots, until no more are offered. This assure you have the latest driver and are fully patched.

Make sure the wireless switch is on at all times.

I would also flush the DNS cache to see if it solves your networking problem:

Copy and paste these lines in Note pad.

@Echo on
pushd\windows\system32\drivers\etc
attrib -h -s -r hosts
echo 127.0.0.1 localhost>HOSTS
attrib +r +h +s hosts
popd
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /flushdns
netsh winsock reset all
netsh int ip reset all
shutdown -r -t 1
del %0

Save as flush.bat to your desktop.
Right click the .bat file and choose to run as Administrator. Your computer will reboot itself.

If this doesn't help then look more closely at the logs shown in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7, for networking related errors logged at startup, google the exact text and identifying number of these errors or post back a screenshot of them, to research how others solved them.

 

[ComputerNoob23]

@gregrocker, I did the flush.bat and now the laptop won't even start???

 

[gregrocker]

Boot into Win7 disk provided in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7, select Repair My Computer on second screen. Run Startup Repair to see if it finds anything to repair. If not boot back into the Recovery Options to select System Restore, work as far back as necessary until Win7 will restore and start.

If this fails I would rescue any files needed (should be backed up anyway) from step in tutorial, then proceed with the Reinstall, deleting all partitions during the booted install to create and format New for the install.

 

[ComputerNoob23]

That worked! You're the absolute best! Thank you SOOOO MUCH! I can't repay you!

 

[gregrocker]

Which worked exactly?

Do you have stable wireless?

How is performance? Any hangs or hesitation?

 

[ComputerNoob23]

Boot into Win7 disk provided in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7, select Repair My Computer on second screen. Run Startup Repair to see if it finds anything to repair. If not boot back into the Recovery Options to select System Restore, work as far back as necessary until Win7 will restore and start.

This one, the wifi is running smoothly and it has no delay for anything, performance seems to be improved actually!

 

[gregrocker]

If you want a project you can http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219576-clean-up-factory-bloatware.html to improve performance even more. The steps turn off the Acer bloatware and duplicate utilities that start up with Windows even if you don't end up uninstalling them. It also offers other optimizations and the tools and methods which work best with Win7 based on tens of thousands of cases we've helped with here.

You can learn to troubleshoot your install by going over the http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html.

Once you gain confidence you can do a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164 which is the best install possible and will build the confidence to do anything.