C
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Ok so this problem first started about 3 days ago. Later tonight will mark 72 hours. Let me try to track back and see what had happened and what I've already done to try and resolve these issues.
Ok, so my computer was getting very slow and would barely load anything. Like if I tried to search, like the start menu search it'd take ages to type. But everything I did on my browser (chrome) was fine, and without delay. So I did a check disk, and it proved helpful.
Oh, by the way the laptop is the Avatar Mercury 14'' Ultrabook.
The specs are as follows:
Version of Windows: 10.0.10240
Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U 1.7GHz
Video card: Intel HD Graphics 4000
Memory: LAP - 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM slot x 1, Support up to 8GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
Hard Drive: 500GB SATA 5400RPM + 32GB Sold State Drive
OS: At the time of purchase it was windows 8, but has been updated to windows 10 as of about 4 months ago. No issues has occurred such as this.
Chip set: Intel HM77 (not 100% sure if this is relevant, but it listed in the specs and I guess it may be important)
Ok, so back to the story!! After completing the check disk it booted up perfect. I still noticed a bit of some performance issues because the PC was still a bit sluggish but not as slow as prior to checking the disk. Also note I keep the laptop on my lap most of my time, atop a cooling station with 2 fans so it rarely overheats. It's never hot to the touch, and is only warm at times when it is hot in the house (but it has been very cold recently). Not sure if that may be relevant, but just putting it out there.
So I proceeded to do a system restore. It was doing this for quite some time, maybe around 1.5 hours but not quite 2 hours. It said it encountered an error and nothing was changed, but on startup the PC went into automatic repair, then then went to diagnose the PC. It was not able to find any issues, and was restarted. It loaded and loaded at the screen with the blue windows logos (with the four blue boxes) and the white dots going in a circle with a white background. It then proceeded to show me the blue screen with the "Your PC couldn't start properly." "The operating system couldn't be loaded because a critical system driver is missing or contains errors."
Then it listed me the suspect file and error code:
File: /windows/System32/drivers/tcpip.sys
Error code: 0xc0000098
An additional error I was given, not during the same repair, but either my second or third time doing the automatic repair a new error appeared and gave me a log file.
"Log file: C:/WINDOWS/System32/Logfiles/Srt/SrtTrail.txt"
Then says "You'll need to use recovery tools." Which I did. I tried everything, reset keep files, reset but remove files, another system restore, startup tools.
Oh, and I was also unable to boot into safe mode, and still can't.
I made a bootable USB with windows 10 and was able to get the computer to run the drive by using the advanced startup options from the blue screen. I tried to the repair options, resetting both keeping my files and removing my files, and each time it failed (although when I ran them from the flash drive I was given the failure message much sooner than when I did it from my PC alone).
I booted into command prompt, and did the following commands which I read can sometimes fix the booting and unable to reset issues (I also performed another chkdsk :c /r /f which did not find any errors as well. This was done from command prompt as I was unable to get into my computer, even from safe mode).
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
I also performed the sfc /scannow command without no avail.
After this is I feel the situation became much worse. I regret not just installing another Windows from my bootable USB on top of this version of Windows 10 which is having issues. Anyways! After performing the sfc /scannow and the bootrec commands, I restarted. The PC pulls up the loading type screen, says F2 for startup options or F10 for boot menu, displays the Intel Rapid Storage Information a long with the hard disk and the solid state drive info/compacities, but after this screen nothing happens. It is just the black screen with no cursor. The blach screen of death, if you will (I've come to believe).
I have been unable to enter the BIOS/boot menu to change the boot order to make the PC boot from the USB drive first. I hit the F10 and nothing happens. Even when I hit F2, you can see "Please wait..." at the bottom, but nothing happens. If I hit Ctrl+I at the screen directly after this, it does open the configuration settings. If I hit ctrl+alt+del, it goes back and shows me the first screen when you restart which shows you how to enter the boot menu by pressing F10.
I feel like there is nothing I can do and really do regret installing the version of windows from the flash drive on top of this corrupted version, although I have no hope at this point that it would have even worked. There were no hardware changes to this PC at all, I haven't upgraded it or had to change anything. I've tried to connect to an external monitor, but the same thing happens.
Oh, and also I almost forgot, the screen will stay black for about 5-7 minutes, then it just does a restart on it's own and then returns right to the black screen. I've tried connecting a USB keyboard to try and hit the F10, thinking that that may work. I've also hit F10 repeatedly. I've also held the fn key and hit F10. I've hit fn, let go, and hit F10. Nothing works to try to get into the BIOS so I'm thinking the only thing I can do is just to take it to the PC repair shop to get it fixed. If that is the case I will probably just try to buy a new Mac OS if Windows really killed my laptop like this. I've been in love with Windows since Vista, and liked both 8 and 8.1 which is why I didn't update to 10 for the longest time, but have enjoyed it as well. Just from doing my research and learning more about the OS I feel I should have kept it as 8. Or even 8.1. If there is anything anyone has that can help solve my issue besides taking it to get serviced by Geeksquad or some other PC shop, your help will be 1000% appreciated! I feel there is another trick or two I can do to be able to use this laptop again. I don't care about my files, everything important I have backed up and there wasn't much information on this PC as well besides music, but that is all backed up as well. All my important documents are backed up on the google cloud. So keep this files on this PC is not of utmost importance to me.
Again thanks for all the help in advance I hope there is something that can be done from here! I'm not very tech-savy but if it involes like removing the hard drive myself and trying to reboot it on a different machine, I am very capable of doing that. I also follow directions very closely and if there is something I don't understand I will ask questions to clarify rather than going into the fix blindly, causing more issues! Thank you! Also sorry for any typos or grammatical errors in this... I have been doing anything and everything to prevent myself from pulling my hair out and I'm surprised I haven't throw it out the window yet, but I am still hopeful I can use this PC again soon!
Continue reading...
Ok, so my computer was getting very slow and would barely load anything. Like if I tried to search, like the start menu search it'd take ages to type. But everything I did on my browser (chrome) was fine, and without delay. So I did a check disk, and it proved helpful.
Oh, by the way the laptop is the Avatar Mercury 14'' Ultrabook.
The specs are as follows:
Version of Windows: 10.0.10240
Processor: Intel Core i5-3317U 1.7GHz
Video card: Intel HD Graphics 4000
Memory: LAP - 8GB DDR3 SO-DIMM slot x 1, Support up to 8GB DDR3 (1333MHz)
Hard Drive: 500GB SATA 5400RPM + 32GB Sold State Drive
OS: At the time of purchase it was windows 8, but has been updated to windows 10 as of about 4 months ago. No issues has occurred such as this.
Chip set: Intel HM77 (not 100% sure if this is relevant, but it listed in the specs and I guess it may be important)
Ok, so back to the story!! After completing the check disk it booted up perfect. I still noticed a bit of some performance issues because the PC was still a bit sluggish but not as slow as prior to checking the disk. Also note I keep the laptop on my lap most of my time, atop a cooling station with 2 fans so it rarely overheats. It's never hot to the touch, and is only warm at times when it is hot in the house (but it has been very cold recently). Not sure if that may be relevant, but just putting it out there.
So I proceeded to do a system restore. It was doing this for quite some time, maybe around 1.5 hours but not quite 2 hours. It said it encountered an error and nothing was changed, but on startup the PC went into automatic repair, then then went to diagnose the PC. It was not able to find any issues, and was restarted. It loaded and loaded at the screen with the blue windows logos (with the four blue boxes) and the white dots going in a circle with a white background. It then proceeded to show me the blue screen with the "Your PC couldn't start properly." "The operating system couldn't be loaded because a critical system driver is missing or contains errors."
Then it listed me the suspect file and error code:
File: /windows/System32/drivers/tcpip.sys
Error code: 0xc0000098
An additional error I was given, not during the same repair, but either my second or third time doing the automatic repair a new error appeared and gave me a log file.
"Log file: C:/WINDOWS/System32/Logfiles/Srt/SrtTrail.txt"
Then says "You'll need to use recovery tools." Which I did. I tried everything, reset keep files, reset but remove files, another system restore, startup tools.
Oh, and I was also unable to boot into safe mode, and still can't.
I made a bootable USB with windows 10 and was able to get the computer to run the drive by using the advanced startup options from the blue screen. I tried to the repair options, resetting both keeping my files and removing my files, and each time it failed (although when I ran them from the flash drive I was given the failure message much sooner than when I did it from my PC alone).
I booted into command prompt, and did the following commands which I read can sometimes fix the booting and unable to reset issues (I also performed another chkdsk :c /r /f which did not find any errors as well. This was done from command prompt as I was unable to get into my computer, even from safe mode).
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
I also performed the sfc /scannow command without no avail.
After this is I feel the situation became much worse. I regret not just installing another Windows from my bootable USB on top of this version of Windows 10 which is having issues. Anyways! After performing the sfc /scannow and the bootrec commands, I restarted. The PC pulls up the loading type screen, says F2 for startup options or F10 for boot menu, displays the Intel Rapid Storage Information a long with the hard disk and the solid state drive info/compacities, but after this screen nothing happens. It is just the black screen with no cursor. The blach screen of death, if you will (I've come to believe).
I have been unable to enter the BIOS/boot menu to change the boot order to make the PC boot from the USB drive first. I hit the F10 and nothing happens. Even when I hit F2, you can see "Please wait..." at the bottom, but nothing happens. If I hit Ctrl+I at the screen directly after this, it does open the configuration settings. If I hit ctrl+alt+del, it goes back and shows me the first screen when you restart which shows you how to enter the boot menu by pressing F10.
I feel like there is nothing I can do and really do regret installing the version of windows from the flash drive on top of this corrupted version, although I have no hope at this point that it would have even worked. There were no hardware changes to this PC at all, I haven't upgraded it or had to change anything. I've tried to connect to an external monitor, but the same thing happens.
Oh, and also I almost forgot, the screen will stay black for about 5-7 minutes, then it just does a restart on it's own and then returns right to the black screen. I've tried connecting a USB keyboard to try and hit the F10, thinking that that may work. I've also hit F10 repeatedly. I've also held the fn key and hit F10. I've hit fn, let go, and hit F10. Nothing works to try to get into the BIOS so I'm thinking the only thing I can do is just to take it to the PC repair shop to get it fixed. If that is the case I will probably just try to buy a new Mac OS if Windows really killed my laptop like this. I've been in love with Windows since Vista, and liked both 8 and 8.1 which is why I didn't update to 10 for the longest time, but have enjoyed it as well. Just from doing my research and learning more about the OS I feel I should have kept it as 8. Or even 8.1. If there is anything anyone has that can help solve my issue besides taking it to get serviced by Geeksquad or some other PC shop, your help will be 1000% appreciated! I feel there is another trick or two I can do to be able to use this laptop again. I don't care about my files, everything important I have backed up and there wasn't much information on this PC as well besides music, but that is all backed up as well. All my important documents are backed up on the google cloud. So keep this files on this PC is not of utmost importance to me.
Again thanks for all the help in advance I hope there is something that can be done from here! I'm not very tech-savy but if it involes like removing the hard drive myself and trying to reboot it on a different machine, I am very capable of doing that. I also follow directions very closely and if there is something I don't understand I will ask questions to clarify rather than going into the fix blindly, causing more issues! Thank you! Also sorry for any typos or grammatical errors in this... I have been doing anything and everything to prevent myself from pulling my hair out and I'm surprised I haven't throw it out the window yet, but I am still hopeful I can use this PC again soon!
Continue reading...