Laptop won't boot

timwinters

timwinters

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my older laptop, a 2011 Dell Vostro 3500 running Win7, wouldn't boot up this morning.

Tried running the "startup repair" to no avail.

Now moved on to restore. I selected the 5/9/18 critical update as the restore point*. It tells me "you must enable System Protection on this drive." And wont allow me to check the "local disk (C: )" to restore it. Presumably because I haven't enabled system protection. How do I do this?

Thanks!

(Note: I'm a technotard so you'll need to tap it out in my hand!) ;)

* there is also a restore point titled "5/11/2018 9:09:29 AM listed. I didn't use my computer yesterday though it was left on and sleeping. I wonder if this update is what jacked it up???

Also, this is not my work machine just the "entertainment machine." It's connected to the stereo and big screen. It has about 10,000 songs loaded on to it, numerous concert videos, has Internet connectivity and streams to my entertainment system nicely. That's all it does, it was downgraded to this function when I bought a new machine in late 2016.
 
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You won’t have this problem after you install Ubuntu...
 
Try holding F1 when you turn it on. It should give you options like Safe Mode for startup. I've had computers start in Safe Mode, then I shut it down and restarted and it worked normally. May have just been lucky. If your hard drive has issues in the boot sector, you may have to boot from a CD (if you have a boot disk).
 
One of my inviolable rules is to always recover the data, if it is at all recoverable, before I worry about the system. If I were in your position, I would download and burn any "live" Linux distro. I would then boot into it and copy anything valuable to Some Other Media (flash drive, etc.).

I might choose Linux Mint, for example, following the instructions for creating a bootable DVD or flash drive. Then I would boot into it and copy the data to Some Other Media, like a second flash drive or external hard drive, and then unmount and eject that Other Media so you don't accidentally overwrite it.

I might also poke around in there to try to fix Windows from within Linux, something I've done more than a few times. Sometimes it's possible, sometimes not. But recovering the data would be my first priority. Once you do that, you can attempt to fix Windows or reinstall it using whatever media you have (or can get). Or assuming the hard drive is not the problem, you can just install Mint and see if you like it.

Linux Mint is Debian-based like Ubuntu is and will run all Debian packages (at least any I've ever tried) and most Ubuntu packages. But it's less bloated and, in my opinion, faster and more stable than Ubuntu. For what you're doing with that machine, it may be a good permanent OS option. But it's definitely a good data recovery tool option (assuming that the HDD isn't hosed).

Rich
 
Thanks, Rich,

This is my entertainment machine. There is no data on it except for songs and videos. And those are also on an external hard drive and on my main machine.

The question remains, where do I enable "System Protection" for the C: drive?

I should have known better than to ask the question on a Saturday. I'll kick this to the top tomorrow when everyone is back to work, bored, and cruising PoA! ;)

Edit: never mind, I found it on Microsoft's website.
 
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And the answer seems to be it's already on but the system doesn't recognize that it's on and I'm screwed.
 
F8, not F1 for the Win7 boot options.

You mentioned the music was on an external hard disk. If whatever hit that machine is malware, it can affect the external drive if it’s connected. Rich’s rule about protecting data applies, unplug it.

See if it’ll boot in Safe Mode.

“System Protection” is just whether or not Windows is writing Recovery Points to the drive during Windows updates. My experience with Recovery Points is about 50/50 in the corporate world at it being able to fix anything, and much lower in the personal computer world of viruses and crap from stuff people don’t defend against, or worse, click on. The smarter the user, the closer to 50/50 Recovery Points get.

In the corporate world we don’t even try to repair Windows anymore beyond maybe the new Win10 “restore and keep my files” single attempt. If it doesn’t work, we flatten the machine with a fresh install image and move on, life’s too short to mess with repairing Windows... it breaks itself, after all. Regularly. Total waste of time.

But Rich’s rule first. Save important data. Too late for step two which is save important configuration files. After those two steps are done, we treat Windows like the junk it is and just wipe it when it misbehaves.

Next thing we install at the office will be automated software inventory and install. Load the Windows image, inventory software sees the standard software isn’t on the box, and installs it all with reboots. Machine is back to useful in 20 minutes.

Anyway with all of that said, see if it’ll boot to Safe Mode, but realize that in traveling this way lies madness before we even get started.

Anything I have to have working, or would eat more than four hours of my time manually restoring, is backed up with some sort of full image software so it can be restored from an empty hard disk in no more than five minutes of actual work, walk away, and come back when the drive image is copied back onto the drive.

Friends don’t let friends restore Windows. ;)

My airplane co-owner runs a small computer shop. He has fixed rates for this sort of data protection, reinstall, reconfigure service because it happens so often that Windows craps in its own bed.

And before anyone gets too saucy, Mac does as well, just less often. But it craps the entire bed with something the size of elephant dung when it does it. :) It saves up for one big massive crap. LOL.
 
Thanks Nate,

F8 got me to the safe mode but it wouldn't boot that way either. So, I just restored it using the factory image. Nothing I needed was on the machine that hadn't long ago been placed on the new one. This will likely speed it up because I won't reinstall any of the "work" software like Office, Adobe, etc. I'll simply reload all the music, videos and Chrome and that's all I need.

Notable:

This is the first time I've ever had a windows machine come from together. And, honestly, I think I did it to myself. I have my entertainment system on a powerstrip so I can turn all the components on/off with one switch. This laptop is also plugged into the powerstrip. I have a feeling that I turned off the powerstrip but forgot to close the laptop. The last restore point listed was a critical update on 5/11/2018 9:09:29 AM. That is the day it crashed. It may be that the update downloaded and started to install...and the battery went dead in the middle of the process. (pure technotard speculation) The error message was that the registry was corrupt.

denverpilot said:
You mentioned the music was on an external hard disk. If whatever hit that machine is malware, it can affect the external drive if it’s connected.
Click to expand...

Understand, I never keep external drives plugged into the machines. The backup drive for my "work machine" is plugged in monthly, the machine is backed up, the drive is unplugged. The drive with all the music and concert videos is kept unplugged to. It's only for back up and transferring files from one machine to another. It's not impossible that they are infected but I try to keep them isolated except when actively using.
 
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Sounds likw the fastest way back to working is underway. Depending on how old that factory image is, it may need a bunch of Windows Update runs until it’s fully patched.
 
denverpilot said:
Sounds likw the fastest way back to working is underway. Depending on how old that factory image is, it may need a bunch of Windows Update runs until it’s fully patched.
Click to expand...
I downloaded 12. About 1/2 critical and 1/2 optional. Not sure if this is just the first wave though. I'm on that machine now, on Chrome, so at least it works for this! ;)
 
timwinters said:
I downloaded 12. About 1/2 critical and 1/2 optional. Not sure if this is just the first wave though. I'm on that machine now, on Chrome, so at least it works for this! ;)
Click to expand...

Heh. Yeah. Depends on the age of the image but on Win7 it’s likely it’ll do more if you re-run Windows Update.

Some updates can’t be done before others so it does then in order then does another batch and another (if it’s set to auto update) or you just keep running it until it says no more. :)

This is why I like backup schemes that make a full drive image on older versions of Windows. Once it gets up to date, I’m backing up not only the stuff on it but the patched OS doing that.

That way it only has to do updates that have come in since the last image backup.

Have to have enough space somewhere to back up to, though, is the only downfall.

This stuff works well for a freebie in the home edition. Rich may have other ones he likes he might mention.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
 
denverpilot said:
Heh. Yeah. Depends on the age of the image but on Win7 it’s likely it’ll do more if you re-run Windows Update.

Some updates can’t be done before others so it does then in order then does another batch and another (if it’s set to auto update) or you just keep running it until it says no more. :)

This is why I like backup schemes that make a full drive image on older versions of Windows. Once it gets up to date, I’m backing up not only the stuff on it but the patched OS doing that.

That way it only has to do updates that have come in since the last image backup.

Have to have enough space somewhere to back up to, though, is the only downfall.

This stuff works well for a freebie in the home edition. Rich may have other ones he likes he might mention.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
Click to expand...

I use Macrium Reflect (the paid version) these days. It blows everything else away.

I used to use Casper, which was good; but they were late to the party when Win10 came out. So I tried all the usual imaging and cloning software that was available at the time, and Macrium Reflect came out the winner for both. I image and clone the system daily, and sometimes more often when doing major updates.

I also use Shadow Spawn, RoboCopy, and rClone for the online data backups, but they're more geek-oriented.

Rich
 
Also, Win10 is actually a fast and stable system, in my experience. If it weren't for all the spyware, I might actually like it. As it is, I like it well enough save for having to disable all the spyware every time a new build rolls out.

Rich
 
I had a laptop just up and quit last week. I was on-line and it just died. Wouldn't recognize that it had a hard drive. Called Dell on-line on a different machine when I got home and they said that it sounded like a hard drive failure, so they sent me another one. Same problem with it. So, now the laptop is on its way to one of their service centers. I suspect they'll replace the motherboard. Thank goodness all my documents and photos are backed up on Carbonite (not to mention that the photos are on a few additional machines, as well). What's really annoying it that this machine was just put into service early August last year. Oh well, the warranty hadn't expired, so all this nonsense is on Dell's dime.
 
We have about one of those a year with Dell out of anywhere from 60-100 depending on Mac popularity at the time.

We keep the on-site service paid up for the first three years on our corporate stuff after we figured out it’s cheaper and less annoying than disassembling them ourselves.
 
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