HELP: Weird problems after crash, need advice

[geometrikal]

Hi all,

I have Windows 7 Professional x86 running on a Dell E1505 laptop.

Last night it froze up and the only way to restore was to do a hard reset. Disk scan started automatically on reboot and fixed some things.

Once booted I noticed some strange things:
- some auto-start programs pop up with errors
- wallpaper was reset to windows 7 default
- no pinned items appear on taskbar
- can't pin items to taskbar
- no items appear in start menu recently used list
- explorer / desktop font is not aliased

SFC /scannow says there are some corrupted files but is unable to fix them...

Any ideas of the best way to proceed, and still keep my programs? I have a lot of large programs which would take hours to reinstall (Altium + updates, MS Office etc)

 

[richc46]

System Restore is the way to go, but you will lose your prgrams.

In lieu of that try this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?filter[2]=General Tips

 

[geometrikal]

Cheers, will try that and if it doesn't work then full restore.

 

[richc46]

You will lose programs with system restore, but it does work. You only lose programs installed between the restore date and the present.

You go back to a restore date of January 1 and you installed no programs from Jan 1 to March 2, you lose no programs.

 

[geometrikal]

there are no restore points... weird

 

[Frostmourne]

This might be an infection.

1) Run Malwarebytes Anti Malware full system scan after updating. If it finds anything, scan again in safe mode.

2) Run chkdsk

3) Run Seagate Seatools' Short DST.

4) Run Memetest86+ for a couple of passes.

5) Report back.