After disk cleanup, having many problems with Windows 7

[k8tmama]

I ran the disk cleanup and it freed up several GB of space on my C drive (I have a Dell laptop with a C drive with about 62 GB of space and a D drive with 426 GB. I let it run overnight because it said it was going to take 6 hours (no idea how long it actually took).

It had either shut down or hibernated, so I turned it back on the next morning. Windows booted up, but has not been working--I can't use the shortcuts, and even if I click on something from the start menu it won't run. (Firefox, for example, or other programs). It gives me an error message about the data not being found with an I/O error.

I am able to use the internet and some programs in Safe Mode, which is what I'm doing now. I can't use my audio system in Safe Mode.

I have the upgrade CD for Windows 7--they sent it after I had bought the computer. Do I need to reinstall Windows 7? Can I do it from the update CD? Do I need to back up all of my files (photos, etc) before I reinstall it?

Thanks,
Kate

 

[Brink]

Hello Kate, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I have not seen or heard of this happening in Windows 7 yet, but when you ran Disk Cleanup, did it look like it does in the tutorial below with the large GB sizes?

Disk Cleanup Windows Error Reporting Bug Fix - Vista Forums


For now, see if downloading and merging the lnk (LNK) and exe options in the tutorial below may be able to help. They will restore the default associations of these file typs.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19449-default-file-type-associations-restore.html

If not, then try doing a system restore at boot using a restore point (if available) dated before you ran Disk Cleanup to see if it may.

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn