Trying to find the culprit in boot failure twice the past month

[Windows7Trainee]

Background:

• Installed a Kingston SSD five months ago - 128GB
• Still use System Mechanic Pro, although not as OCD. Using it lot less out of fear of corrupting registers and boot sectors.
• Sometimes I will leave the notebook on 2-3 days without rebooting

A couple of times, I got the message of a bad boot sector and had to opt for the Recovery Utilities (?) In both instances, the repair failed and had to restore. I listed my primary suspects above. On System Mechanic Pro, I use it a lot less, but it has this annoying automatic cleanup that could be causing me problems.


This does not address my problem, but the first time, my MS backup was done wrong , but the second time I was able to restore from a full Acronis backup.


Hope I listed a likely suspect on the boot problem.

 

[Kaktussoft]

What was the exact error? And who told you to opt for Recovery Utilities. Can you be more specific?
The error message appeared immediately on boot?

 

[Windows7Trainee]

That's all I can recall.

I'll take notes next time and get better on the backups.



On the bad boots, I had the option of a normal Windows boot (failed), or safe boot, and eventually booted from a Windows 7 recovery CD....it attempted to fix the problem without success, forcing me to restore to an earlier version.

 

[Kaktussoft]

and eventually booted from a Windows 7 recovery CD....it attempted to fix the problem without success

It tells you what is wrong. Click on "view diagnostic details" or something like that. Status 0x0 means no problem.

 

[Windows7Trainee]

....that does jog my memory.

May have gotten a Status 0x0. Why it would fail to boot in such a case is strange, but don't know for sure that was the case.

 

[Kaktussoft]

....that does jog my memory.

May have gotten a Status 0x0. Why it would fail to boot in such a case is strange, but don't know for sure that was the case.

It checks a lot of stuff: MBR, bootsector, bootmenu, file integrity, disk check etc.
All with a status code

 

[gregrocker]

Uninstall System Mechanic Pro. It is likely the cause of your problem.

I would also consider a Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 since HP's are already larded with the worst load of crapware in the industry, and then to impose a tweaking utility on Win7 is piling on more corruption. Get and keep a perfect Clean reinstall like any tech enthusiast will do.

 

[karlsnooks]

Strong agreement with the advice from Greg.

If possible, 100% shutdown your laptop or deskcomputer, at least once a day.

Memory leaks, --a program requests some memory, but when finished doesn't return as much as it took--do happen.

MS software leaks, commercial software leaks, drivers leak. MS is good about plugging their leaks, but still every once in awhile, a new leak surfaces. Most of us are not aware of these leaks because quite often the occur only under rare combinations of events.

To avoid problems keep the number of programs you install to the minimum you need. Uninstall a program when no longer needed.

Avoid all of those wonder, super-duper, speed-up your computer programs.

Before you fall prey to the propaganda from one of them, ask here.

Make system image backups.

There are only two types of people:
those who make backups and
those who wish they had made backups.

The question is not if your (or any person's) computer is going to have a disaster, but rather when.

 

[gregrocker]

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

 

[Windows7Trainee]

I have uninstalled System Mechanic Pro.

 

[Windows7Trainee]

Update: Got rid of System Mechanic Pro

Tried to come as close to a Clean Install as possible - need to find all the software, drivers, keys, etc, however I have uninstalled AFAIK everything HP other than my printer.

I've been making full backups using Acronis.

The stability have been good so far.