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

[rubyrubyroo]

Avira WAS functional. I don't exactly know how nvstor.sys enters the picture, probably through an update that day.

 

[essenbe]

Did you do a clean install on that motherboard? Do you have spare hard drive(s)? I really see no option other than a clean install, but we can continue trying if you want. If Golden has any contributions, I would like to hear them.

 

[essenbe]

If you have a cell phone with a camera or any other way to take pictures, please go into bios, and take pictures of the main page which shows CPU, ram, temps and other stuff. Also, please go to your sata configuration and post a picture of that as well as your boot options.

Do you have diagnostic LED lights on the motherboard?

 

[rubyrubyroo]

Did you do a clean install on that motherboard? Do you have spare hard drive(s)? I really see no option other than a clean install, but we can continue trying if you want. If Golden has any contributions, I would like to hear them.

I know win7 x64 was installed only one time, it was from an upgrade DVD, so I'm not sure if I installed Vista simply for that purpose or installed it clean, bypassing the "upgrade" status of the installation DVD. (may have been "family pack lic", although I doubt that matters.)

I have a 1TB HDD that I used to made a sect-by-sect clone of this drive onto before starting working on it, so I would have everything intact if all goes to $%^! I can have a new clean 1TB drive in probably 15-20 minutes though.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

Do you have diagnostic LED lights on the motherboard?

No, I do not.

If you have a cell phone with a camera or any other way to take pictures, please go into bios, and take pictures of the main page which shows CPU, ram, temps and other stuff. Also, please go to your sata configuration and post a picture of that as well as your boot options.

I will find a way and I'll get on it...

 

[essenbe]

My idea was to clone your current drive to a new drive, remove the current drive and replace it with the cloned drive, in the event we really mess it up. It seems you have done that. What Imaging programs do you use? For the time being, please disconnect any secondary drives you have so that the Windows drive is the only one connected. If you have a USB install, disconnect the DVD player too. If you don't have a USB install, create one. Use the USB/DVD download tool, works pretty well for me if you have an ISO of your OS. Otherwise you will have to try to create one manually (option 3). http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

 

[essenbe]

The pictures I asked for do not need to be good at all. As long as I can read the info, I am happy. I am just looking for something obvious.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

OK, I just quickly rigged everything up and grabbed 13 captures, but it's there all ~ 5000x3800 pixels and I don't have my batch processing tools. So what's the quickest way to get the pics to a smaller size that can be within the limits of SF and so on? Individually process in paint.exe?!?!?!

And I did get an extra new 1TB WD HDD seperate fom the original clone, which I used EaseUS Todo Backup to create (whole HDD clone)​

 

[essenbe]

You can use Paint or I like the snipping tool. Make it whatever size you want.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

I thought It would be wise to just rar‘em (even though they wont get smaller they’ll be easier to DL/view at this size and in the interest of brevity!

They're probably not ordered in an understandable manner....

(I'll post the images if you prefer)

Mike

 

[essenbe]

OK, give me a few minutes.

 

[essenbe]

Am I correct that you have unplugged the secondary hard drive? Do you have a dedicated graphics card? Your system specs say no, you are using the on board graphics. 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.

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

 

[rubyrubyroo]

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?:sarc:!!!


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?

 

[essenbe]

OK, I just looked at your system specs and saw a WD and Hard drives. I'll get back with you later, Let me think a little.

 

[essenbe]

There is a good chance we could resolve most of your problems if we could boot into the OS.But, it looks like that is not happening. This is pretty much everything that can be done for a system that fails to boot, http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html.

As a last resort, try running any distro of a Live Linux CD. Don't install it just run it. It will run from ram and takes the OS/programs/drivers out of the equation. It will tell us whether we have an OS problem or a hardware problem. If you need suggestions on a Linux distro, I can give you several. Other than that, I am out of suggestions. I would like to be able to at least recover your software activation numbers.

If you have any questions, please ask.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

I'll try Greg's "tutorial of tutorials" and just hope I don't fall intoo deep in sub-sub-sub-tutorials! I'll report anything noteworthy if I encounter anything different, but that's going to take the better part of a day, and as you, a fellow Floridian, knows, it's getting pretty dark outside...I've been running on a few hours of sleep during my previous "sleep-over" With all the nurses doing every testat ungodly hours, staggered just so I couldn't really get to sleep before it's time to wake up and get "drained" of my blood and such! My point is I'm t getting a whole lot done tonight, and I hope to sleep in tomorrow! So Your Help and guidance has been wonderful, Just because we didn't fix a lot of things, doesn't mean that we didn't learn that those things can't be fixed in that manner, so you (and others) have been extremely helpful! Let me work through some o these ideas and I get back to post tomorrow - SO, TAKE A BREAK MY FRIEND!! (at least from MY problem!) I’ll "holla' back" at you probably in the early to mid afternoon tomorrow. OK?!

I appreciate everything you've done, Steve, and I will follow through one way or the other until it's "solved".I'll get going on some of it now and see how far I get tonight then take it from there...

So, until then! Mucho gracious, and Adios!...

 

[essenbe]

I'll hang in with you as long as you want to. Most of Greg's Tutorial, we have already done, I'm pretty sure. Get all of the rest you want/need. I'm not planning to go anywhere. Just take it slow and easy. When you try to rush and take shortcuts is when you make mistakes. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. If I don't answer, PM me. I do occasionally miss a notice.

You can make a system image without being able to boot with Macrium or other imaging programs, I'm just more familar with Macrium.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

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.

 

[essenbe]

If you have a cloned drive, it would not matter if you wiped the disk and started off fresh without the possibility of something on the old drive messing up the new install. That's what I would do. The Activation Key should not matter. It is just a reinstall, so your original key should activate with no problems.

This may help with the clean install http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

[essenbe]

In case you missed it, I edited the above post by putting in a link to a clean install.