Major StartUp and Performance Problems After Blackout ???

[BuckSkin]

I will start at the beginning.
Windows 7 Pro on a DELL Optiplex 780m tower with AMD Graphics Card

The machine was ON with three or four photo editing programs open, but no activity for long enough that the monitor had "gone to sleep"
The electricity suddenly went out for about five minutes.
Always before, whenever one of our computers lost power, it would remain OFF until it was physically turned ON; not so this time.
Much to my amazement, when the power came back on, the machine immediately powered up and began to boot.
It got as far as all of the task-bar and about half of the desktop icons and froze there; it would not respond to anything.
Cap-Locks does turn ON/OFF; I read somewhere that this had relevancy.
I let it alone a spell, but it remained in the frozen state; so, I held in the power button until it shut-down.
Numerous re-tries resulted in varying degrees of starting Windows, tried with and without a system repair disc; results seemed to matter not whether with or without the disc.
Safe Mode starts right up and everything seems to respond, however response is very sluggish.
About one start out of ten, it will go ahead and start and programs will work and things will seem fine; then, it will freeze up again and the only remedy is a forced shut-down.
In safe mode, I restored to a system restore point; it said the restore was successful; but, when it restarted, it was froze up again.
It seems to take forever starting Windows, much longer than before the blackout.

I have read internet searches until my eyes are sore, seeking a solution or a verdict, but none of the things that come up resemble my situation.

How do I fix this ?

Thanks for reading.

 

[BuckSkin]

Since my initial posting, I found, read, and followed these instructions:

Your PC boots, gets to the Windows desktop, then freezes. Now what? | PCWorld

I started in Safe Mode, accessed msconfig, then startup tab, and disabled all options; I then restarted and it did then successfully get past the desktop; however, everything is very sluggish and slow to respond.
I haven't yet had time to experiment with turning ON one-by-one the things that I just did turn OFF to see which was the culprit, nor have I had time to restart a few times to see if that indeed helped, or if it is just one of those rare instances where it has been starting.

 

[Ranger4]

Try running a scan of your file system. To do that follow this Forum tutorial.

SFC /SCANNOW : Run in Command Prompt at Boot - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[BuckSkin]

Try running a scan of your file system. To do that follow this Forum tutorial.

Thanks; I am running the scan now (just started).

From the sudden blackout, the machine has also developed a problem of the screen going dark-blue and becoming unresponsive if left unused for more than a few minutes; again, the only way to recover is a forced shutdown.

I have a clone of the drive when it was in peak condition, programs and all, on another HDD that I can resort to if I have to, but I would like to figure this out first.

I hope it is not a hardware problem.


EDIT = UPDATE: scannow said that it found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them.
Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log.
For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

I ran scannow a second time with identical results.

What do I do now ?

 

[Megahertz07]

When you have a shutdown like you did, some opened files can get corrupted.
Do a disk check.
Boot from the win 7 installation disk, go to repair and launch a CMD window. Type:
chkdsk c: /f
Pay attention on the results, specially for bad blocks or bad clusters.
Then run sfc /scannow 3 times.

Do you have surge arrest? If you don't, you should. Any power break generates high voltage peaks and harmonics.

Any surge arrest with more than 2.000 J and with a switch is good.
SurgeArrest - Newegg.com

I would buy this BELKIN BE112230-08 8 Feet 12 Outlets 3780 Joules Surge Protector with Telephone and Coaxial Protection - Newegg.com

 

[BuckSkin]

Do a disk check.

Thanks; I will put that in motion within the moment.

The machine is plugged into what is supposed to be a surge-protecting power strip; I would have to move fifty things to see it and tell just what it is.

Thanks for the links and recommendations.

 

[TechnoMage2016]

Please.....Please.....don't waste good money on a Surge Arrestor (Protector) if you don't already have a Battery Backup system (UPS).
You'll spend more money on a really GOOD Surge Arrestor than you will on a nice little APC (brand) Home UPS, which by the way comes with its own Surge Arrestor.
One Surge Protector I have, sold originally for $149, while the last UPS I bought, at Walmart, only cost me, $39.95. Do the math! A UPS is by far the best buy.

Living here in the Lightning Capital of the Americas, I can attest to the importance of having a good UPS, and Surge protection systems. Lightning induced blackouts here, can extend from moments to hours.

I have five layers of Surge Protection between the real world and my PC's motherboard, and a UPS system that will keep my PC alive and well for over four hours. Lightning and surge protection is a lot cheaper than rebuilding a PC. Eh?

So right after you install a UPS, use your Clone backup to restore your PC to full functionality again.

Cheers Mates!
TechnoMage

 

[BuckSkin]

chkdsk is still doing it's thing.

Please.....Please.....don't waste good money on a Surge Arrestor (Protector) if you don't already have a Battery Backup system (UPS).

I already have this on my Christmas list, providing Santa Claus is not having a financial dilemma:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TZTGWK/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3V5ACA1QNCV1I&colid=1DVCIIRSXZ5ME

Please point me towards the $39.95 one that you mention.

 

[Megahertz07]

If Check disk is taking that long, that isn't a good signal.
May be it's time to buy a small SSD (128G) for windows and programs and a new HDD for data.

A UPS is a good solution as a no break, but it isn't a warrant to protect from spikes. Only those that has a good surge arrest (more than 2.000 J) can protect till it switch from line to the battery inverter.

 

[BuckSkin]

If Check disk is taking that long, that isn't a good signal.

chkdsk finally completed sometime within the last hour.

The last line reads: "Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50."

Above this there are several lines of various number amounts and such and then:

"Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system."

Scattered throughout are mentions of deleting file this and file that.

At the very beginning, there are eight separate duplicate sentences in two groups of four with consecutive numbering:

1% complete <59156 of 311808 file records processed>
File record segment 59156 is unreadable

The first four of these are 59156 thru 59159.
The second four are 59276 thru 59279.


I haven't touched it since it finished; the command line window is still open and readable.

This is a 2TB WD-Blue that is maybe six months old.
There are three separate lettered drives/partitions on it; the system C: drive is 300-GB, strictly photo image files are 1TB, miscellaneous documents and data is on whatever remains (app. 700-GB).

Did this application of chkdsk do only the C: drive or the whole disk ?

Do I need to save this chkdsk readout and, if so, how do I accomplish that? (I am thinking maybe I cannot according to that last line.)

Do I run scannow 3-times now ?

 

[Megahertz07]

You should also do a check disk on the other partitions.
chkdsk d: /f
chkdsk e: /f

 

[BuckSkin]

You should also do a check disk on the other partitions.
chkdsk d: /f
chkdsk e: /f

Before I do, I am going to get it back up and running and see if I can rescue anything that isn't already backed up somewhere else; hopefully, I can do this via our network; elsewise, I will try to do it via my Sabrent SATA/USB adapter thingie.
There shouldn't be much that isn't already safe and secure somewhere else; the vast picture collection automatically backs up via Synchredible once each day.

I will report back after this next step.

Thanks.

 

[BuckSkin]

Okay........, Before I closed out of the command line window, I executed scannow three times, the I closed the command line window and clicked restart; while not nearly so quick as it has been in the past, the machine came to life and settled into the Windows desktop and was ready for use in short order.

I let it chew on that a bit while I went to another machine to see what all I could access via the network; I was able to get into every nook and cranny and do as I pleased; that is a big improvement on last night, when I couldn't access any part of it on the network.

I went back over to the subject machine, loaded Photoshop Elements, and did a bit of photo manipulation; everything was quick and responsive.
I left Elements open and opened FastStone, the leaving it open as well, I opened a real machinery intensive program, DxO Optics Pro 9 Elite; I selected a batch of 75 jpegs and performed several enhancements, then pasted all of my work to the whole batch and saved them to the drive; it went through them like a hog goes through shelled corn.

So far, so good.

Before I do any more troubleshooting and investigating, I have a few folders that need to be backed up.

I am not going to say it is fixed just yet, as it may crash in a few minutes; but, so far, so good.


On EDIT UPDATE: One hour later, I selected a different folder of photos to be viewed, something that should happen in the blink of an eye, and everything froze up again; the photo viewing program disappeared from the screen and the little blue circle has been going round and round for the last ten minutes.
I can move the circle around with the mouse, but I cannot get anything to respond.
I am going to just let it cook and see what happens before I resort to another forced shutdown.

 

[Megahertz07]

If the same disk has more than one partition you should do a check disk in each one. If you play around without doing it you may loose some data.

 

[BuckSkin]

You should also do a check disk on the other partitions.
chkdsk d: /f
chkdsk e: /f

On these two drives = "Windows has checked the file system and found no problems."

Also = "0 KB in bad sectors"


I did the chkdsk _: /f as per your previous instructions ( _ being the drive); I am assuming the /f means fix, right ?

What happens when the command is chkdsk _: /r /f /v ?

Thanks.

 

[Megahertz07]

Run Check Disk from a Command Line to Check for and fix Disk Errors

 

[BuckSkin]

If the same disk has more than one partition you should do a check disk in each one. If you play around without doing it you may loose some data.

Well..., I think I got it fixed, although not in the way I was going at it; but, then, I am not going to declare a celebration just yet, as I have been built up many times before only to have the rug jerked from under me.

Each time I ran chkdsk followed by scannow three times, things got noticeably better; it booted quicker, programs responded quicker, all would seem to be back almost to normal; then, just when it would appear that everything was going to be okay, the simplest command would result in everything freezing up, with that familiar little blue circle going round and round.
Once, just to see if it would ever come out of this coma, I let that little blue circle go for most of the night; hours later,nothing had changed and I had to force a shutdown again. (I don't know any other way to regain control when everything freezes up; if there is a better way, I am all ears)

Then, I got to noticing whole sections of features were no longer available in many of my photo manipulating programs; all would appear fine and ready for action until I would click on a menu and nothing would be there.

I finally gave up on fixing this O/S and decided another cloning was in order.

I have an entire separate HDD that is cloned and ready to pop in; but, it is a 500-GB, whereas the one in the sick machine is a 2TB; plus, I had gotten in a space pinch and had stored about 400-GB of video on it.

So, I still had two options other than a clean install; I could simply clone my good 2TB HDD that is in an identical machine; or, hopefully, I could just clone the O/S partition and leave the rest intact.

My favorite back-up program AOMEI BackUpper FREE will only clone partitions in the paid-for version.

Macrium Reflect FREE will clone partitions only.

So, I fired up Macrium and set it to cloning my good O/S onto the destination HDD; when Macrium finished, I got a bad feeling when I looked in Disk Management; Macrium had erased the System Reserved partition on the destination disk and made it unallocated territory; the destination O/S partition was a good 10-GB bigger that the source, so that was not an issue; I had been overly cautious when setting Macrium up to make sure something like that didn't happen and yet it did.

EaseUS Partition Master FREE to the rescue; I have had and used EaseUS for a couple years; and, until today, I was unaware that it could clone a partition; so, I used EaseUS to clone/replace the System Reserved that Macrium had messed up.

So now, I stick the HDD back into it,s machine; me having successfully done a few clones with AOMEI that had always been plug-and-play,I had no reason to expect problems.

Alas, the machine booted quicker than I had ever seen it and then stuck between the Welcome screen and the desktop, little blue circle going round and round; plus, everything was huge, even bigger than when in Safe Mode.

I had to resort to a forced shutdown; then, I popped in my Repair DVD and gave that a spin with the same results.

So, I removed the HDD again and this time I left Macrium in the closet and used EaseUS to re-clone the O/S partition.

This operation took about four times as long as the same task took Macrium; the Macrium job never once said anything about restarting the machine; EaseUS came to a point where it restarted at least twice.

Finally, all finished, I put the HDD back in it's home and tried again.......; this time, it was a success; it booted quick and everything seems to be in order; plus, and this is the reason why I wanted to only clone the partition and not the entire disk, all four of the other original drives/partitions remained intact and untouched.

I may come back crying and whining with my belly in knots, but all seems to be fixed now.

I could have done this clone business when the trouble first started, but I wanted to see if I could fix the ailing O/S; I learned a lot by doing so and don't regret taking the long way around.

I want to express my appreciation to Megahertz07 and everyone else for their help and advice in this hour of crisis.

If you have read to this point, you deserve a break and a rest; thanks for reading.

 

[Megahertz07]

Glad you fix it. Please mark this thread as Solved.

 

[Megahertz07]

Hope not, but I think you have a disk problem.
Backup your data on another disk. Better be safe than sorry.

 

[BuckSkin]

Hope not, but I think you have a disk problem.
Backup your data on another disk. Better be safe than sorry.

Anything is possible; the way the electricity violently slammed off and then the mysterious way that the machine started back up without any influence from me, it is a miracle any part of it still works.

It was connected to a surge-protecting power-strip of sorts; but, I have read in a number of places, and been told by the local computer geek, that after a single surge, a surge protector becomes no more than a glorified extension cord; and, he said that one may never know that they had had such a surge and the protection they were relying on was viable no more.
I am only repeating what I have been told and couldn't even make an educated guess as to the truth of the matter.

Thanks for the back-up advice; I have everything on at least two other HDDs, and quite a bit of it in more places than that.

If the HDD is damaged, do you figure it will start the freezing-up problem again ?