Windows 7 Blue screen?

[Rollodo]

You can try resetting the BIOS settings to its safe defaults (there should be an option for that).

If you can log in at all, run the System File Checker. To do that, at the command prompt, type the following command, and then press Enter:
sfc /scannow

 

[Dauntless]

I. Downloaded theWinPE at the library, but I'm nit understanding how to launch it from the bios. The usb card flashes but nothing new happens.

 

[Rollodo]

I. Downloaded theWinPE at the library, but I'm nit understanding how to launch it from the bios. The usb card flashes but nothing new happens.

Never had this tool before, but if it works just like any other bootable USB stick, you have to choose to boot from USB. Maybe F12, F2 or another key while you see the initial Energy+ screen. Or just go into BIOS and choose the first boot option as your USB stick, something like this:

 

[mark5]

If you just downloaded the file onto the flash drive it isn't enough. You also need to make the flash drive bootable like so: Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on a USB Flash Disk.

 

[Dauntless]

Yeah, I have it set for the boot and the flash drive flickers, I'm wondering if there's formatting or something. I didn't understand there was anything like that to do but something isn't working. I used to learn this stuff in advance, now I'm more interested in the wood bike thread, right?

 

[mark5]

So you're saying you have it set it for boot meaning to make WinPE you ran copype.cmd, and MakeWinPEMedia using Windows 8 or using Windows 7 you ran copype.cmd, copied winpe.wim, diskpart, etc. to make the flash drive bootable. Diskpart formats the flash drive under Windows 7 and MakeWinPEMedia under Windows 8.

Power on the PC and tap (or lean on) Escape, F9, F12, or whatever key until you positively get the boot options menu. Then choose boot from USB device. Boot only this way for certainty rather than rely on boot order setting in the BIOS menu.

If the flash drive wasn't bootable (either because you had not made it bootable or just because some flash drives aren't bootable) and the PC tried to boot from it there should be a disk error message, booting would stop, and you'd have to pull the flash drive out and press any key to continue. You didn't see such an error message so it's possible the PC didn't try to boot from the flash drive.

If you have another flash drive you could try to boot from that and get an error message to prove that the PC tried to boot from it.

 

[marty]

Might be easier to boot Windows PE from a CD rather then a USB flash drive.

 

[marty]

Might be easier to boot Windows PE from a CD rather then a USB flash drive.

Might also be easier to boot Lessss's - linux Mint live cd, Ubuntu, and Windows from a CD rather then a USB flash drive.

 

[arkmundi]

Try booting to a linux Mint live cd.

Yes, my very same suggestion. FYI, Mint is an offshoot of Ubuntu, and there is also a live cd available for Ubuntu, or other distros of linux. Also, it can be a CD or USB.

There are several things that can fail which would cause your machine not to boot. In order, from the power switch: >> the boot room >> hard drive boot sector >> hard drive OS >> the OS. Yes, the boot rom can go too. The idea is if you can boot to another local than the hard drive, you've eliminated all the hardware issues excepting the hard drive. My first choice for the problem you're experiencing is the hard drive, which would entail a replacement.

In the meantime, with a live CD or USB, you can do useful things. If you're hard drive is OK or mostly OK (usually its a few critical sectors that can go), it'll show up among your drives and you can read & write there OK, so you're back to business as usual, almost.

Another thing about Ubuntu, Mint and its offshoots, is gparted, a disk partition utility that is supurb. With that you can do antying to any connected drive, including repartitioning it, if you want, and yes, it can handle Windows FAT32 and other such. So for instance, you could run Ubuntu live on your CD, find out what's wrong with your hard drive if anything, decide to lay down a new copy of Windows, backup your hard drive for recovery, partiion your hard drive for Windows and then reinstall Windows.

Dauntless, if you want me to send you an Ubuntu Live CD, pm me your address.

 

[mark5]

Might be easier to boot Windows PE from a CD rather then a USB flash drive.

Might also be easier to boot Lessss's - linux Mint live cd, Ubuntu, and Windows from a CD rather then a USB flash drive.

Booting from CD should be slow enough to be an indicator that the PC really did try to boot from CD.

If the CD (or flash drive) light flickers only for a second or two the PC probably didn't try to boot from it.

If the CD (or flash drive) light flickers for 15 or more seconds the PC probably is trying to boot from it.

 

[Dauntless]

Okay, I did not know a flashdrive had to be set up to boot from. I'm really out of touch.

 

[arkmundi]

Okay, I did not know a flashdrive had to be set up to boot from. I'm really out of touch.

Every drive, whether HD, disc or USB flash that you want to boot has to have the boot flag turned on and the bootable OS installed. For the latter two, your BIOS has to be setup to recognize those devices. Then with a disc or flash inserted and the requisite Fkey (usually F11 or F12) you can then select those devices and off it goes. This is pretty universal for the industry as BIOS standards took hold.

 

[mark5]

Okay, I did not know a flashdrive had to be set up to boot from. I'm really out of touch.

Okay, so you didn't make the flash drive bootable (can't blame you--the Windows 7 procedure to make a WinPE flash drive is really boring). But the other problem going on was that boot device order wasn't set--your PC never did try to boot from the flash drive before trying to boot from the hard disk. Otherwise, you'd have gotten the disk error message and had to pull the flash drive out and press any key to continue. And earlier you probably didn't have boot device order set for the CD first when you tried to boot from your restore CD since your PC just blew the CD off and went to the underwater screen.

So how about starting over and making sure you get the one-time boot option menu first. On H-P it's supposed to be power on, lean on the escape key until it displays a couple options, then press F9 to get the boot option menu. If that doesn't work it might be power on and lean on F12. Keep trying until you get the boot option menu. Once you get the boot option menu try to boot from the restore CD you have. It should work. You're just trying to see how far you can get, not really do a restore.

 

[Dauntless]

The boot order was set just fine, it just didn't do any good.

So I gave up and took it to Fry's Electronics -- Who can't get it to work. They said the hardware checks out fine but they can't reinstall windows, at least not yet. Sounds more and more as though I'm getting a new computer.

 

[dodjob]

Hey there,
if you do, don't forget that things have change concerning linux. It's now very easier and work in 99% of the case (on standard computer) out of the box. I have here, some cds and usb sticks with ubuntu on it. when someone has a problem with his pc, the first thing he do it's to boot with it.
Linux won't replace windows for a lot of little and specialised softwares BUT it will for everyday use and that represent 99% of the use anybody will have.
I use a Vbox and wine for 3 softwares. There is absolutely no native M$ system on any of my machines, and this since about 10 years.
Do I preach.. Yeaaah Man I do, it's an old habbit, nd even if my favorite distro (Ubuntu) drifted a little the mint version will give you the rock fast and stable "thing" you are to expect from a tuX system
PS: This are the soft which I use
CAD= Proe Wildfire
Photo/image= The Gimp
Video= Openshot
Ftp= Filezilla
Http= Chrome
Website design= Gedit
Music/dev= Fruityloop on wine
Music listen= Rhythmbox
and tousand of little software like Phatch, pdf shuffler, putty ssh client...etc Linux rocks
And that's all Also... my machine is 8 years old, and works... like a charm nearly 24/7 since it's assemby

 

[mark5]

The boot order was set just fine, it just didn't do any good.

So I gave up and took it to Fry's Electronics -- Who can't get it to work. They said the hardware checks out fine but they can't reinstall windows, at least not yet. Sounds more and more as though I'm getting a new computer.

Fry's would've had to boot and run your PC with something, like HP PC Hardware Diagnostics, in order to have been able to tell you that your PC hardware checks out fine. So I assume Fry's can't get it to work means they somehow can't get your current Windows installation running again, not that they can't boot it with something else from CD or flash drive. Don't know what them not being able to reinstall Windows, at least not yet, is about.

Anyway, sorry I can't add anything else after this. Being able to boot from anything besides your current Windows installation is necessary to make any progress. The only bootable media you have to try is the Windows repair CD you found. Maybe it's somehow bad and not bootable. You could try booting it in another PC to see what happens. I just tried booting my PC with a non-bootable data CD. There was no error message telling me to remove the CD and press any key to continue like I'd expect if it had been a flash drive plugged in. The PC just read the CD for a second and continued on to boot from my hard disk. Just like what happens with yours now.

Orange County Linux Users Group (OCLUG) meets at CSU Fullerton and help people install Linux if you're ever interested in that. You could just try to boot and run a live CD from them to see what happens. Or even request to have Linux installed alongside Windows so your current Windows would be preserved.

 

[Dauntless]

Thanks for all your help, I suppose if you'd tried it yourself you could have done it, it's been since Windows XP that I did serious work or actually built one, I feel lost. It was fun when someone was STILL trying to use a DX33 with W95 and that meaty processor could handle being overclocked to 160 (For a little while, it wasn't much use as it was anymore, so . . . .) And some old 4-8mb videocard was $3 at Goodwill, gets them out of buying a new one another year or two.

But now I feel like I need to go to school to touch anything. I was looking at the motherboards at Frys and I'm not sure what the ports are.

I put things together with linux before, too. Set up shop for several Hollywood wannabees with old computers and free software, Blender was a big hit. Again, I'd be hard pressed to do it again. I'm thinking I should do something about that.

At the moment Frys has said the hardware is fine, but what install they tried to do didn't work. It was going to be ready, they left a message it didn't work. So maybe I wasn't screwing up as bad as I thought. I'm still thinking I'll be buying a new one right away, though it might just be an irratic harddrive that didn't show up in their diagnostic.

 

[mark5]

Offer to send you a bootable CD stands. Just takes one postage stamp to send a CD and you have a known working bootable CD in your mailbox in 5 days.

 

[Dauntless]

Hey thanks, I appreciate it, but I'm still dealing with all this being out of my league fcor the time being. They got the computer to go finally, could only say it acted strange. My repair discs worked for the guy ultimately.

So my data was erased. Ot should I say the DIRECTORY was erased. Not that the data was urgent, but this is a chance to work on recovery, another exercise where its been a long time.

Any suggestions?

Oh, I need to find Mr. Kingfish's sandbox program.

 

[mark5]

Haven't used any data recovery programs but here's a good review of some.

Sandbox programs:

Faronics Deep Freeze Standard. Makes your PC's C: drive mostly invulnerable to malware. Once your PC is put into a "frozen" state any changes, including malware effects, to your PC's disk contents disappear when the PC is rebooted. You can create and specify a partition like D: in which to store data that you want kept across reboots. Often used on public library and school PCs.

ToolWiz Time Freeze. Free for home use. Works like Deep Freeze. Works ok according to this thread about it in Wilders Security Forums.

Sandboxie. Free for personal use, unpaid version displays reminder prompt to buy it. Makes apps like web browsers run in a sandbox so that unwanted changes, like malware effects, are kept in the sandbox. The sandbox can be cleaned out any time. So Sandboxie works on individual apps vs. Deep Freeze and Time Freeze which work on the whole disk drive. I've used Sandboxie since 2008 and it has worked fine.

 

[Kingfish]

Oh, I need to find Mr. Kingfish's sandbox program.

There are a couple of paths to go:

• First, boot to Safe Mode, go through and find what is not working correctly and fix it. Or
• Use Windows PE, create a safe boot directory, use the O/S to figure out what is broken and fix it.

Either method works to solve basic hardware issues. You should not have to wipe the drive or directory; that is only necessary if the Tech doesn’t know what he’s doing and really jacks the drive. I have never had to do that in 20 years of Windows Programming. If I wipe a drive, it’s for a completely different purpose. Example might be a Thumb Drive containing data; faster to format than erase.

So once again, use Safe Boot of the existing O/S, or use WinPE. Everything else is noise.
If you suspect there are software bugs, then I suggest using MalwareBytes: Go to the website, download it, run the update, then let the thing go for an all-day crunch on your system to find the furry beasts. But first, you need to use one of the two methods above to resolve the problem(s).

The questions I haven’t seen asked are:

• How old is this PC?
• What was the original O/S?

Here’s some more info on WinPE; some of this I posted already.
What is Windows PE?
Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)
Windows PE Developer’s Guide
Windows PE: Windows Preinstallation Environment Overview

Curious, KF

 

[Dauntless]

Its an HP touch screen from spring/summer 2010 Windows 7. Its a blank slate.

The only restore it offers is to set it before the moment they fixed it. I assume it wouldn't work anymore if I did that. I can reload programs, it's the PDF's, unusual pivtures, etc. Tht found and kept in the missing folders that i f I could figure out how to recover may well be waiting there.

Yeah, tht deep freeze stuff looks like what I'm after.

 

[Kingfish]

Apologies for the slowness of replies; it's Turkeygobble holiday and I'm tied up with family.

-->> So Friend, did they just load another O/S onto your box and leave everything else, or did they wipe the drive?

Win7 is good; your box being only 3 years old (2010) is good. I see no issues here with that.

Just trying to understand the big picture without actually touching your machine. I do not do PC support - even for my own family, but I'm still unclear of the issue other than the weird screen issue.

Ideas corner:
If you can get to a desktop, I suggest doing the MalwareBytes trick. If you cannot get to a desktop then we need to go to Safe Boot or WinPE. Can you tell me which is possible or have tried please?

Another question:

• Is this a laptop or a desktop?
• Did you install anything new recently BEFORE the issue began?

Just trying to corral the possibilities - if you know what I mean
Best, KF

 

[Dauntless]

Hey, take your time, not like you're obligated to respond at all. It's a desktop.

As for what exactly they did, I just can't say. They had my repair discs. But the additional icons beyond a new load are gone, my software is gone, etc. I'm just hoping that means the directories get cleared in the reload but I can get folders back. It's booting just fine now, I can put the old software back on, but I'd sure like to get pictures, *.PDF's, *.PPT's, etc. that there's no link to but are probably still on the hardrive. Not sure how much of that I'll ever find again. I've restored erased files before, but not figuring it out here.

 

[mark5]

It's booting just fine now, I can put the old software back on, but I'd sure like to get pictures, *.PDF's, *.PPT's, etc. that there's no link to but are probably still on the hardrive. Not sure how much of that I'll ever find again. I've restored erased files before, but not figuring it out here.

You could try one of those freeware data recovery apps, like MiniTool, at the link that was posted before and see whether it finds anything. Here's another link to others.

I highly recommend getting one that doesnt' have to be installed on the computer itself but can be run off a thumbdrive or whatever, so you aren't writing more stuff to the drive in question.

That's a really good idea.