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Laptop not booting/ slow

J

javasirc

Well-Known Member
Today I was playing a game on my laptop. The game froze for a few seconds (as it normally does) and I hit the keyboard fairly hard. It was still working fine. I went to restart the computer, and I clicked "force shutdown". It shut down.

Note that I have Windows 7 and Windows 8 CP installed on separate partitions.
When I tried to boot it back up, Windows 7 took an insanely amount of time to get passed the black screen with the Windows logo and text that says "Starting Windows".

Eventually it got to the blue screen with the flower with the loading-circle and "Welcome" text and "Windows 7 Home Premium" text at the bottom. It didn't get past that.

So I rebooted into safe mode, and it got to
"Loaded: \Windows\system32\DRIVERS\CLASSPNP.SYS"
then stopped loading.

Then I booted Windows 8, and it booted normally. I ran some system tools/defrag on the Windows 7 partition and it passed, though it took forever.

So I tried to boot W7 again, and it took multiple times longer to get passed the black screen with the Windows logo sign.

I booted Windows 8 again. It literally took 20 minutes to boot, when it normally takes 30 seconds. Now, W8 is running insanely slow. At the login screen, it took about 15 seconds for the password text box to gain focus so I could type my password. After a grand total of about 40 minutes, W8 is now loaded. So I go to switch to desktop, and it took about a few minutes to switch from metro to desktop.

I don't know what is going on. It's not a virus. I don't think it's a registry error, because it wouldnt effect W8 partition right? Did I damage the hard drive? Is it taking its last few spins as I attempt to load windows? Could I have broken or disconnected my RAM and now everything is loading as Virtual Memory on the hard drive?

Also note that I am able to access files on the W7 partition from the W8 partition.
There is no odd noises coming from the laptop.

I opened Task Manager in W8. It says
0% CPU (jumps between 0-1 idle)
14 % Memory
100% Disk (100%? Is this an issue?)
0% Network

Edit
After further experimenting, I loaded Fire Fox with Task Manager open. Under Performance, I clicked Disc. The "Active Time" jumped to 100% for 4-5 minutes. The CPU stayed between 0-1%. FF finally loaded. I also loaded a video from my W7 partition. Ironically it loaded and is playing fine.

It's obviously a hard drive issue, is there anything I can do about it?
 
One more thing to look at / think about - boot into safe mode and run a simple
Code: 
 chkdsk
and let it report what it finds on the drive.

I worked for a company doing Tier II tech support, and one day one of the sales persons came in with a key that had popped off the KB. The Service manager (Dean) said, oh, hell, we can just pop that back on - didn't think about it at all. We popped it back on - laptop was running - and poof. instantaneous HD crash. Hard crash, drive was irrecoverable. Our guess is that that particular key was in the exact perfect location to send off exactly the wrong set of harmonics to the drive when the key popped back into place. Or something like that.

Moral of the story - don't bang on your computer when the drives are spinning. I'm sorry that it's a lesson that you have had to learn the hard way, but hopefully you'll get to the bottom of where the error(s) are coming from and be able to get all your data off of the drive, and minimally just format and start over, or optimally, replace the drive.
 
I've been using GSmartControl to check the health of my HDDs. It should very quickly verify or otherwise if the drive is dead/dying. Looking at the site, it comes included in several system recovery live CDs so it might be as well to download one of them, burn the iso to a CD and boot that.
 
johnlgalt said:
One more thing to look at / think about - boot into safe mode and run a simple
Code: 
 chkdsk
and let it report what it finds on the drive.
Click to expand...

I ran chkdsk. It took a long time to finish, but now my Windows 8 partition is running at normal speed.

My Windows 7 partition begins to boot at normal speed, but gets to the black screen right before it shows the desktop, and doesnt go any farther. Any idea how to fix that? Could W7 be a registry error? BTW i had ran disk defrag on W7 while i was running W8. Not sure if that would make a difference.
 
Sounds like a failing HDD drive to me. The sudden and erratic nature of the performance across two OSs on the drive is the clue to me.

If you can, download the Ultimate Boot CD and run it. Choose the HDD diagnostic tool for the manufacture of your HDD (you'll have to pop off the cover over the drive and look to see what make it is). Run the LONG test of the tool you use as the long test will perform a surface test and in some cases (like the Seagate tool) try to recover bad sectors. These tools are more in depth than the built in Windows chkdsk.

The UBCD is free and very worth the CD you burn it to.

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

If the drive is failing, don't be too surprised. Laptop drives have a pretty high failure rate due to them being shocked, bumped and moved while on and overheating over time too (laptops are not designed for ventilation).
 
W8 was working. I began copying files to a flash drive, preparing for the worst.

Whenever I go to a certain folder (C:\Users\Chris) the Disk performance reaches 100% and stays at 100% even after I close the windows explorer window. I can still move windows around the screen, but can't access anything on the hard drive. So I restart the computer. Now W8 won't boot (or it's back to taking 40 mins). Same with W7 Safe Mode.

My most important files are in C:\Users\Chris. I can't access that folder at all.

I'm going to order a new disk for my laptop. Problem is, I won't be home for 4 more weeks. I'll have to rely on my iPod for the next month.


Edit:
After about 30 mins of trying to run chkdsk, and nothing happening, I turned my laptop off, and opened the bottom and touched the hard drive. It was very hot, like putting your hand on something black that's been in the sun for an hour. Is it supposed to get this hot? Is it possible something is rubbing, or the motor is trying to spin the disk but instead over heats because it can't?
 
No, it's not supposed to get that hot. Likely the bearings in the platter motor are shot and are creating tons of heat from friction. That drive is done.

While you're downloading the UBCD (using another computer obviously), also download and burn a copy of Knoppix linux. It's a distro of linux that is primarily designed to run from CD and includes many many tools. Wait until that HDD cools down (overnight), then boot to knoppix, insert your flash drive and copy over the things you need to save from your hard drive.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

Then keep Knoppix and the UBCD on hand. They are indispensable computer technician troubleshooting tools.
 
Yea the hard drive is physically broken. I ordered a Momentus XT 500gb as a replacement. Its supposed to improve boot times. It's a hybrid HDD/SSD. I hope this drive works the way it's said to. I've read both good and bad reviews on it.
 
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