startup repair running unable to cancel

[VicM]

Folks,
Running Win 7 Pro. When booting today the Windows logo roaming colors froze. I had a number keypad and external hard drive connected thru a USB hub during this boot. I had never had the external drive connected on boot before. So I held down power button to turn off PC. I unplugged the external drive and powered up again.
Got message that system shut down improperly and suggested System Repair to be run. Did so and after several minutes message asked to boot to previous restore point. Again, I selected that option.

The 'attempting repair' has been running over one hour and it won't allow me to cancel!
What can I do?

Vic

 

[linney]

If it is still running power down manually. See if it restarts normally, if it does not see if it will boot into Safe Mode. If it does see if you can set it up in Safe Mode to do a Clean Boot. See if it will boot into Normal Mode via a Clean Boot, if that does not work see if you can repair install Windows 7.


Advanced startup options (including safe mode)

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Advanced-startup-options-including-safe-mode

How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929135

Windows 7 - Repair Install

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2255099

 

[rclarke250]

See, the problem with doing a "repair" install of windows 7 is, it needs to be able to boot into windows, and not safe mode. So if you are trying to "repair" a system that won't boot to a desktop, the repair install is useless. Now, you can use the windows install media, or a repair disk if you made one, and do a start up repair, that may fix the issue, but your best bet is still turn off, and attempt to start normally.

 

[goombawaho]

If none of the above works, test the hard drive to see if it's not having a problem and corrupting windows.

 

[VicM]

Folks,

Thank you for your suggestions.
I actually did do a manual shut down. When I powered up, it booted into Windows. But after running one of my apps, I got a msg saying there was corruption on the disk and that I should run chkdsk.
When I tried doing so in a CMD window, I received a msg saying that I didn't have the required security (permissions?). This was baffling since my user name is an administrator.
So I went thru a logoff with the intent of relogging using the actual administrator's ID. The screen went blank and I did not receive the login screen where I could choose either administrator or me. Subsequently, I performed another manual shut down. Upon power up, the system went into command line mode and recommended I use chkdsk. I selected this option and after several minutes of the system doing its thing, my laptop booted into Windows successfully.
So far, I've been using the laptop with no apparent problems. I'm hoping the situation has resolved itself, but keeping my fingers crossed. LOL

Again, thanks to all,
Vic

 

[rclarke250]

You could have done this the first time from an elevated command prompt, right click the command prompt icon and choose run as administrator. I know it makes no sense that your account is an admin account, but you still have to elevate the command, you would think that as an admin, all of the commands would be elevated, but this isn't how they do it. It's to protect you, you have no idea what you are doing, so to make sure, we want you to jump through this hoop, then you can do what you want. But glad it is working, the first time this happened to me, was when I booted from a linux diagnostic usb drive, and then I tried to boot back into windows 7, and then the fun began.

 

[goombawaho]

Any more funny business and you'd better test the hard drive. It could be starting to have a problem......

 

[rclarke250]

sold the laptop, after replacing the drive. I love the warranty on the WD black drives, and they didn't have a small 250 GB drive in stock, so they sent a 320 Gb drive as a replacement.

 

[goombawaho]

rclarke250 - Did you post to the wrong thread???? I can't follow your last comment in relation to the thread.