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Windows not booting after forced shutdown
Anonymous Robot
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I was using my PC when my mouse stopped responding. My internet connection was cut off, and basically it just became a lot of trouble to use. I couldn't restart from windows, so I just pushed the power button.
Now when I try and start my PC it takes me to a "Windows was not shut down properly" screen. I've tried safe mode, last good settings, and normal startup, but it always just bluescreens and takes me right back to that page.
Is there anything I can do? Am I going to have to reformat? That would be a bitch and a half, I just finished getting my stuff back from my last reformat.
Now when I try and start my PC it takes me to a "Windows was not shut down properly" screen. I've tried safe mode, last good settings, and normal startup, but it always just bluescreens and takes me right back to that page.
Is there anything I can do? Am I going to have to reformat? That would be a bitch and a half, I just finished getting my stuff back from my last reformat.
Sigs shouldn't be higher than 80 pixels - Elki.
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When does it blue screen? It sounds like you may have a loose hard drive. Sata cables have nothing to keep them attached to the hard drive and can slide off fairly easily. One of the sata cables for one of my hard drives slips off about once a month. Crack the case, with the power supply switched off, and make sure that all the cables, processor, and cards are all properly seated.
Blue screens are often from over heating as well. Loading the OS causes the processor to spin up and if your heatsink has become loose it could be overheating. The same goes for your video cards heat sink. I had a coworker not to long ago have this problem because the fan on his video card was no longer working properly.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
It blue screens during the Windows loading (when the bar starts moving), and it always freezes at the same position during that.
I really hope it isn't a hardware problem. Last time I bluescreened, I had to get a new soundcard.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6121_102-0.html?forumID=45&threadID=252298&messageID=2514375
However, I have an SATA hard drive but no floppy drive. I'm not sure if my hard drive came with drivers on a disc, either. I'll have to look.
Have you tried anything I suggested, and if so what were the results?
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
1. Virus/Spyware: Most malware these days attaches itself to driver files so that it can be loaded at startup, this also makes it very hard to remove.
2. Bad Hard Drive: When hard drives go out many people assume that there is some kind of warning, this simply isn't the case. Every hard drive does it differently and in most cases it quietly corrupts data until it messes up something that is required by the operating system.
3. Corrupted OS Files: This one means that your hard drive is fine but something has caused a key OS file to become corrupted, leaving you in the same situation really.
4. Other Bad Hardware: A single bad piece of hardware in your machine can cause this to happen. Gonna have to find out which one it is.
Solutions:
Required tools:
1. A legal installation of Windows, this is non-negotiable. I don't say this because I hate pirates, it's a simple fact: 99% of pirate copies of Windows are not capable of employing the repair tools you're gonna need to use to fix this. If you're using a pirate copy then just go ahead and bite the bullet and reinstall.
2. Your Windows installation disc. If you're using a name-brand computer make sure that the system disc you have is an actual Windows Installation disc and not simply some system restore disc. Again, you'll need to use the tools provided on the Windows disc in order to fix this issue.
3. Phillips-Head screwdriver. (Optional)
4. Another computer that is bootable. (Optional)
How-To:
First of all you have to get the machine bootable again. I'm going to assume you're running XP for this, if not let me know and I'll post Vista instructions.
Insert your XP disc and boot from it. When it gets to the first screen where it asks what you want to do press the "R" button to select the option of using the recovery console. Next you will get a screen that will ask which Windows installation you want to work with, press "1" and then Enter (assuming you only have one Windows installation.) Now it will ask for the administrator password, go ahead and enter it if there is one (in most cases there won't be one unless you set one up for the Administrator account) and press enter. Now you should be at a command prompt. Type without the quotes "chkdsk /r" and press enter. This may take some time as it will run a comprehensive check on the drive and repair any issues it finds.
Once the checkdisk has finished take a look at what it says. It will almost always say it found and fixed errors. If it stops and says that it "Encountered one or more unrecoverable errors" or if you look in the section that says "kb in Bad Sectors" and it has any number other than a zero listed then you've got yourself a bad hard drive. Time to go get a new drive and reinstall Windows.
Now, if it says that there are "0kb in Bad Sectors" then your drive should be fine. Go ahead and type exit to restart the machine and try booting from the drive again to see if that was all it took to get it bootable again. If it's still not bootable then you're gonna need to repair Windows.
Start off by booting from your Windows Disc again. At the first prompt press the "Enter" key. Next it will want you to press "F8" to accept the liscense agreement. Then it will scan for previously installed versions of Windows and this is the deciding point. If it doesn't find your old Windows (meaning you either have a pirate copy or it's too far gone to repair) then it will take you straight to the hard drive selection screen and you'll know that you have to do a complete reinstall. If it DOES find your old Windows it'll take you to the repair screen. Here you want to press "R" to select the repair option and it will start what looks like the standard Windows installation process. Go ahead and follow the prompts and reinstall Windows as normal until it completely finishes and gets to the part after the general installation (general installation = where it says it has so many many minutes left to go, installing devices and network, etc.). Once it gets to the part where it says "Let's spend a few minutes setting up Windows" go ahead and answer the questions as normal until it gets to the part where it asks you who is using the computer (setting up usernames). This is important, Don't type anything in the username boxes, just press the "Skip" button. If you enter something here it may very well overwrite your existing user accounts, leaving it blank will force Windows to use the old accounts.
Now it should boot into Windows again for you and you should have everything back the way it was. It should be noted that if you get any errors during the repair install then your Windows may be too far gone to repair and you still might need to do a clean install. If you get any driver errors you can ignore them but take note of which ones they were because you will need to download them and reinstall the latest drivers once Windows is back up and running.
Now that you've gotten your system bootable again you'll need to do a few more things before you're all done here. First, if your copy of Windows isn't Service Pack 2 then you'll need to go HERE and download the SP2 installer and run it. Next go HERE and download the Windows Update Repair Tool (WURT). Boot into safe mode and run the WURT tool, you can skip the part about reinstalling IE. Now boot normally and run Windows update as many times as needed to make your system current.
Next we need to find out if your problems were caused by virus or spyware infection. To do that I really recommend you go out and pick up Kapersky Antivirus and Spy Sweeper spyware protection. I know a lot of people say that things like AVG free and AdAware are all you need but it simply isn't true. The fact is that each of them are capable of catching things the others miss. Regardless, here's what you do.
First download and install AdAware. Install Spy Sweeper (assuming you bought it). After the Spy Sweeper install open it up and go to options. Under scanning select "Custom Scan" and then "Edit Scan Options". Here for "Where to Scan" remove all but your hard drives, Under "What to Scan" make sure the restore folder is selected and in "What to Look For" make sure "Check for Rootkits" is enabled. Go ahead and close out Spy Sweeper and go back to your desktop. Right-click on the "My Computer" icon and select properties. Under the "System Restore" tab check the box to disable system restore for all drives. Next, go HERE and download ATF Drive Cleaner and go HERE to downloade SmitFraudFix. Now restart the computer and boot into safe mode.
Under safe mode log into your user account. Click on Start->Run and type %temp% to open your temp folder. Make sure that viewing hidden files and folder is enabled and select everything in here and delete it. Now open up your Internet browser of choice and delete all temporary Internet files, cookies and history. Now open AdAware and do a full system scan, quarantine anything it finds. Now run Spy Sweeper and do a system scan, quarantine anything it finds. Now run ATF Drive Cleaner, check the "Select All" button and then press the "Empty Selected" button. When that's done run SmitFraudFix and chose #2 for repair. Follow the prompts and select "y" when asked of you want to fix the registry. After that reboot normally and install Kapersky. Run a full system scan and remove anything found there.
That should be it. If your hard drive wasn't bad then by now you should have your system back up and running just the way you remembered it. It should be a good deal cleaner now too
If, on the other hand, your hard drive was going bad then you're going to have to try to retrieve your old data. This is actually pretty easy but this post has grown so long now that I think my fingers are gonna fall off. After following what I said earlier, it you find that you need a new drive, I'll post another with instructions on how to retrieve your old data and back up and restore your emails if you use an email program like Outlook.
Hope this helped.
If chkdsk doesn't work, I'll probably just reformat again.
Edit: Fixed, thank you for your help.