Laptop Won't Boot, can't get past Initial Windows Screen

[Jim15]

I think I've encountered a bad sign. The diagnostic extended test is stuck on a particular sector, and has been for a solid 20 minutes now.

The evidence is piling up that my HD is failing.

 

[gregrocker]

They're not that expensive. Just match the specs, slide out the old one and slide in the new one.

 

[Jim15]

They're not that expensive. Just match the specs, slide out the old one and slide in the new one.

I'm not confident that I'd do it correctly though. Have you ever heard of the freezer trick? You put your hard drive in a sealed plastic bag and leave it in the freezer for a while, and sometimes it works magic on your hard drive. Maybe I should try that. lol

Also, any ideas on how the lifeguard scan works? Is it just going to hang on a bad sector forever? Or will it eventually do something?

I might as well try malwarebytes while I'm at it if the HD scan won't work.

 

[Peregrine]

@gregrocker
Your post #25 early on in this thread is fantastic. A great resource with lots of great tools and techniques. I've bookmarked as a page to come back to in the future. Thanks for taking the time to put that all together.

@Jim15
IMHO this has all the characteristics of a failing hard drive as your testing seems to be finding out. Long boot times, random programs not working, windows not booting, all point that way. If you ever got the system to reboot you could go into Event Viewer and under the Windows System logs check for disk errors. I suspect you'll see a bunch of them.

 

[Jim15]

@gregrocker
Your post #25 early on in this thread is fantastic. A great resource with lots of great tools and techniques. I've bookmarked as a page to come back to in the future. Thanks for taking the time to put that all together.

@Jim15
IMHO this has all the characteristics of a failing hard drive as your testing seems to be finding out. Long boot times, random programs not working, windows not booting, all point that way. If you ever got the system to reboot you could go into Event Viewer and under the Windows System logs check for disk errors. I suspect you'll see a bunch of them.

Yep, the diagnostic test just confirmed it for me. It was hanging due to a bad sector, which it offered to repair, but when it attempted to do so it gave me an error.

It now occurs to me why this may have happened as well. It wasn't too long ago, about three weeks back, but while packing away my lap top in a car, I accidentally dropped it and it banged against the car itself. My dad looks at me and says, "That can't be good.". I reassured him that a small accident like that would never mess it up. Fast forward one week later, and that's when my troubles began.

And that's what we call epic foreshadowing. :huh:

At any rate, thank you once again Greg. Even though my problems haven't ended, if it weren't for you helping me out, I would have reinstalled Windows and the problem would have eventually resurfaced. I've also learned a lot of things: the horror of bloatware, ways to troubleshoot a computer with booting issues, and I've got a few new programs that will optimize my computer... when I get a new hard drive.

Don't be surprised to see a new thread somewhere around here about how to replace a hard drive and which to choose!

 

[Jim15]

Alright Greg, I'm bumping the thread like you requested.

I formatted the main partition like you suggested, and the reinstall is currently moving at a slow pace. It's at 7% on "Expanding Windows"

I'll update on what happens when it's done, or in the worst case scenario, if it doesn't work.

 

[gregrocker]

We need to continue here in thread instead of PM's so others can offer their help, too.

It's good news that HD will function as it could mean you are getting false positives with the Windows HD diagnostics. You still need to run booted CD diagnostics to be certain but if it installs then it's a good sign although the HD must remain suspect until cleared.

Run Disk Check from windows 7 asap after install.

Remember the steps to get a perfect install in my signature Pic below:

 

[legacy7955]

This is a very informative and interesting thread.

I'm subscribed to it !:grouphug:

 

[Jim15]

We need to continue here in thread instead of PM's so others can offer their help, too.

It's good news that HD will function as it could mean you are getting false positives with the Windows HD diagnostics. You still need to run booted CD diagnostics to be certain but if it installs then it's a good sign although the HD must remain suspect until cleared.

Run Disk Check from windows 7 asap after install.

Remember the steps to get a perfect install in my signature Pic below:

The reinstall went well. It started up perfectly fine and is moving lightning quick to my surprise. :shock:

It wouldn't let me do the disk check while I was running windows so I shceduled one, restarted, and it's running now.

So far, so good. The check is moving quickly as well. I have to go out and do something though, will update back in 15 minutes or so if the check is finished.

 

[legacy7955]

I'm thinking that your issue was due to some very nasty malware.

I'm interested to see if once you're confident everything is working well, if you will do a new Malwarebytes scan and I am concerned about root kits here possibly. Maybe run the GMER scan, get it directly from www.gmer.net.

I'm still wondering if a partition may be infected. Possible?

Anyone else think looking for rootkits is a good idea?

 

[Jim15]

I'm thinking that your issue was due to some very nasty malware.

I'm interested to see if once you're confident everything is working well, if you will do a new Malwarebytes scan and I am concerned about root kits here possibly. Maybe run the GMER scan, get it directly from www.gmer.net.

I'm still wondering if a partition may be infected. Possible?

Anyone else think looking for rootkits is a good idea?

Before making this thread, a virus was sort of my first thought. Because my computer absolutely refused to run an SFC scan no matter what I did. So I ran a program called Vipre Rescue which does a full scan of the drive. It turned up nothing. Although Greg said he's never heard of that program before. Have you heard of it?

I never got a chance to use Malwarebytes sadly. I'll gladly download and use it after the disk check ends, though.

 

[legacy7955]

Jim I would run malwarebytes but also seriously consider running gmer (from www.gmer.net) because if you have an infected partition the root kit could still be lurking in there.

I'm hoping to get a guru like gregrocker to chime in on using gmer or even tdsskiller another root kit destroyer.

 

[Jim15]

Jim I would run malwarebytes but also seriously consider running gmer (from www.gmer.net) because if you have an infected partition the root kit could still be lurking in there.

I'm hoping to get a guru to chime in on using gmer.

We'll wait and see what Greg has to say I guess. I'm all for running it if there's even a possibility that it can help, but then again I have no idea when it comes to something like an infected partition.

 

[Jim15]

Just a quick update, the disk check completed and found no problems.

 

[Jim15]

I'm having a bit of trouble installing the correct drivers. I can't access internet because I need a certain driver for it, so I downloaded the driver to my flash drive... but I have no idea how to install the driver from there. There's a lot of folders and I have no idea what to do...

 

[gregrocker]

As stated in my steps for a Perfect Reinstall, you should put your wireless driver on a stick so you can get online quickly after install (if the driver isn't provided) to Update your drivers.

Easiest is to find the Setup .exe file and rightclick to Run as Admin, install the driver and then later turn it's software package off in msconfig>Startup along with everything else except your AV.

Some drivers may need to be extracted (unzipped) to a folder, then in Device manager click on the device, choose Update driver, Browse to the folder where it was extracted until it picks up the driver.

Once you connect to the internet, run Windows Updates a few times to see what drivers it delivers before importing any from your computer's Support Downloads webpage.

 

[Peregrine]

Just a quick update, the disk check completed and found no problems.

I had a very similar experience a couple of weeks ago. Laptop fell off my lap while Windows was shutting down. I experienced a lot of the symptoms you are. Because the laptop was dropped I immediately suspected the hard drive was damaged. I ran a chkdsk and it said all was well. Clearly it wasn't. The logs in Event Viewer showed a different story though and had several disk errors starting from after the laptop was dropped. I replaced the hdd and now all is well.

My suggestion is to have a quick peek in Event Viewer from time to time as you're moving ahead with your re-installation. Have a look at the system logs to see if there are any disk warnings or errors (or other warnings or errors). If things start to slow down again or not work well you might get some clues there.

Good luck.

 

[Jim15]

As stated in my steps for a Perfect Reinstall, you should put your wireless driver on a stick so you can get online quickly after install (if the driver isn't provided) to Update your drivers.

Easiest is to find the Setup .exe file and rightclick to Run as Admin, install the driver and then later turn it's software package off in msconfig>Startup along with everything else except your AV.

Some drivers may need to be extracted (unzipped) to a folder, then in Device manager click on the device, choose Update driver, Browse to the folder where it was extracted until it picks up the driver.

Once you connect to the internet, run Windows Updates a few times to see what drivers it delivers before importing any from your computer's Support Downloads webpage.

Okay, I've got 92 new updates waiting for me apparently. A lot of them for some Windows Malicious software removal tool. I'll check back in when it's finished.

 

[gregrocker]

How many drivers in Optional Updates?

 

[Jim15]

Just a quick update, the disk check completed and found no problems.

I had a very similar experience a couple of weeks ago. Laptop fell off my lap while Windows was shutting down. I experienced a lot of the symptoms you are. Because the laptop was dropped I immediately suspected the hard drive was damaged. I ran a chkdsk and it said all was well. Clearly it wasn't. The logs in Event Viewer showed a different story though and had several disk errors starting from after the laptop was dropped. I replaced the hdd and now all is well.

My suggestion is to have a quick peek in Event Viewer from time to time as you're moving ahead with your re-installation. Have a look at the system logs to see if there are any disk warnings or errors (or other warnings or errors). If things start to slow down again or not work well you might get some clues there.

Good luck.

So someone has gone through the same frustrations as me?

Thanks for the advice. I looked at the system logs and did find some errors. I have no idea if those will indicate that my HD is failing, but I'm going to post the errors so hopefully someone can determine that for me.

1. The windows update service terminated with the following error: %%-2147467243

2. The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1

There are two errors like the above one. Two seconds later, there is info concerning the error: "Driver management has concluded the process to add service umbus for device instance ID UMB\UMB\1&841921D&0&WPDBUSENUMROOT with the following status: 0"

Not a good sign, I take it?

3. The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0

I get about 13 errors like this, all at the same time. Then further up the list, AT LEAST another 2 dozen of the same message.

4. The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C:.

^^^
This always comes after a batch of errors like the one listed in #3.

5. This one's kind of long, so I'll just describe it. Pretty much tells me that Microsoft Antimalware encountered an error trying to update signatures.

^^^
Got this error 9 times in a row. Then a few seconds later got the same error 5 times in a row.

6. The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR2

^^^
Got 6 errors in a row like this one. Again, it mentioned the HD, except this time it pertains to DR2 instead of DR1. I have a bad feeling...

7. The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR3

^^^
There is only one error like this one.

8. The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR4

9. Another Microsoft Antimalware error. This time it had to do with behavior monitoring, and it failed. However, it also mentioned the reason for this is because I need the latest definition updates for it.

That's all of them. The ones concerning my harddrive are particularly concerning. Are those errors signs of a failing HD?

How many drivers in Optional Updates?

None. There are only three optional updates to my surprise.