Did my toddler just break my laptop?

[secretary]

So my 20-month old son has been known to turn my computer off, but it never caused any problems before today. I caught him red-handed this morning, and when I tried to turn the power back on I got the "Windows Recovery Error" screen asking me if I wanted to launch start repair or start windows normally.

I opted to boot up normally but it sent me right back to the same screen after the Dell logo screen. I tried the start repair option next and it scanned for problems and said it was unable to determine the cause of the problem.

Because I was in shock, I did this a few more times (12). I took everything out of my USB ports and DVD drive, but I kept getting the same result. I tried three times to do a system restore, which it claimed was successful, but when the computer restarted I got the same error message.

It's a 2+ year old Dell XPS with Vista, and I haven't installed anything new the past few days. Has anyone run across this before?

[Houngan]

Maybe. Try the Last Known Good config, whack f8 during boot until you see the screen.

H.

[secretary]

Hmm...nope. Good suggestion, but it returned to the Windows Recovery Error.

[Houngan]

Does Safe Mode work?

[Demon G Sides]

So my 20-month old son has been known to turn my computer off, but it never caused any problems before today. I caught him red-handed this morning, and when I tried to turn the power back on I got the "Windows Recovery Error" screen asking me if I wanted to launch start repair or start windows normally.

I opted to boot up normally but it sent me right back to the same screen after the Dell logo screen. I tried the start repair option next and it scanned for problems and said it was unable to determine the cause of the problem.

Because I was in shock, I did this a few more times (12). I took everything out of my USB ports and DVD drive, but I kept getting the same result. I tried three times to do a system restore, which it claimed was successful, but when the computer restarted I got the same error message.

It's a 2+ year old Dell XPS with Vista, and I haven't installed anything new the past few days. Has anyone run across this before?

Yes, this has happened to me. Unfortunately you're not going to like what I ended up doing; buying a new laptop. My harddrive was corrupted when this happened, and I could fresh reinstall and it would work fine for about a month or two, and then it died again, then I reinstalled, and then it worked for a month, and then it died, and then I put my foot through it.

It was only 2 1/2 years old, fwiw. You might want to wait on other's responses before taking mine as your course of action, though. I was running Vista on a Compaq.

[Timemaster Tim]

Not a laptop, but a desktop running Vista. I had those symptoms when my video card started to fail. The card had not outright conked out, but it was causing progressively (and quickly) worsening symptoms.

[rei]

Restore from a backup/image.

[secretary]

Does Safe Mode work?

It listed a bunch of loaded drivers and then went back to the Recovery Error screen. Crap. This is not good.

[Dave Long]

Sounds like some kind of hardware failure. It probably wasn't the toddler's fault though. Something just gave up the ghost inside that machine. You could try swapping out the hard drive to see if that's the culprit. Relatively cheap to try that one.

[secretary]

Whew. Hubby managed to fix it by reinstalling windows. Probably not my son's fault after all, which is a shame. I could have held it over his head when he's a teenager and begging for money to buy his first hover car.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[RyanMichael]

Reinstalling Windows may have just put a bandaid on it. Please download and run Speedfan, make sure to run it with Admin rights (right click, Run As Administrator), then click the SMART tab and view diagnostics for your hard drive.

[Mr_PeaCH]

May I suggest you upgrade to an iToddler?

[Slainte Mhath]

I would highly recommend you run chkdsk on that PC. To run a complete chkdsk from Windows Vista do the following:

-Right click your Start button and choose "explore".
-Select the hard drive letter (probably C:) and right click, then choose Properties.
-Click on the Tools tab in the Properties window and in the "Error Checking" section click "Check Now"
-Say yes to "Automatically fix file system errors" and to "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors".
-Click Start.
-Windows will inform you it can't run chkdsk while it's in use, so choose to schedule it for next reboot, then restart your PC.
-As it restarts, prior to Windows loading it will run the chkdsk, marking off any bad sectors so the file system avoids them and fixing any problems with the file system itself.

"Windows Recovery Error" is often associated with problems in the file system or even bad sectors on the disk. When Windows goes to access system information in the bad sector or encounters a problem in the file system, BAM, Windows Recovery Error. Even though the reinstall seemed to fix the problem, it may return if those sectors or problems still remain. Running chkdsk will insure those issues are fixed and any bad sectors marked so that the file system will not attempt to use them again in the future.

[jerri blank]

May I suggest you upgrade to an iToddler?

You should at least run Malwarebytes on the toddler you have to see if he's responsible for trashing your hard drive.

[Tankero]

Whew. Hubby managed to fix it by reinstalling windows. Probably not my son's fault after all, which is a shame. I could have held it over his head when he's a teenager and begging for money to buy his first hover car.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

What, you're not going to lie and claim it was his fault?

[secretary]

I'll be sure to run chkdsk tonight and Speedfan tomorrow. Thanks for the advice!

[Wader]

As the husband in this story, I am going to jump in here, as the problems have resurfaced.

As recommended, my wife ran chkdsk tonight. When she called me over, the computer had apparently rebooted, and was back at the windows repair location where it was the last time. It ran through windows repair, said there were errors that it couldnt fix, then wanted me to send a report to microsoft, then shut down or reboot. On either option, the next time it starts, it returns to the exact same windows repair screen.

Whats odd to me is that apparently what caused this was the chkdsk itself. Nothing was added or changed since the last time it rebooted.

Does that mean that if I could somehow bypass this repair, the computer would boot? Is there somehow a way to get windows not to try to repair itself?

I agree with the opinions in this thread that its looking like the hd is shot. I can replace that no problem, but it would be nice to give my wife a chance to get her files off of it before I do so, and the idea of doing a completely new install of windows using the method I used last time is not how I want to spend my weekend.

Any ideas or advice?

[jerri blank]

Can you get an enclosure for the bad drive and hook it up to another computer to see if the files are salvageable? I've had it happen a few times where the drive still works well enough as external storage, but making it bootable again would wipe out data.

[Wader]

I am assuming I can make it bootable again by doing a clean install from the windows disk, but thats a pain in the butt just to salvage the files.

The enclosure would be a good idea. I have no idea how much those cost for laptop hard drives though.

[jerri blank]

Not too bad, probably 20-30 bucks. Just make sure you get the right kind - they have different interfaces.

Plus, if you do a clean reinstall, you'll probably lose the files.

[Wader]

Sorry, by clean install, I meant "move all old stuff on the hard drive to the "windows.old" folder" (The Dell install does this by default).

It worked last time, so I feel pretty confident it will work a second time.

[RyanMichael]

This is why you run speedfan BEFORE you run Chkdsk. Not to be a dick, but seriously. Running chkdsk on a failing drive is asking for problems, and you can't be sure a drive isn't failing if you haven't checked the SMART status. As I said:


Reinstalling Windows may have just put a bandaid on it. Please download and run Speedfan, make sure to run it with Admin rights (right click, Run As Administrator), then click the SMART tab and view diagnostics for your hard drive.

Everyone who suggested they run chkdsk in this thread, your advice cards are indefinitely revoked. :P


It worked last time, so I feel pretty confident it will work a second time.

No, no no. Performing further write operations on a drive that's proven itself flaky is BAD. Buy an enclosure, put the drive in it, install Teracopy on the system you'll be using to copy the files onto, and get as much off of there as you can.

[Wader]

No, no no. Performing further write operations on a drive that's proven itself flaky is BAD. Buy an enclosure, put the drive in it, install Teracopy on the system you'll be using to copy the files onto, and get as much off of there as you can.

Ok, popped the hard drive this morning, will order the new one today.

Is there anything I need to know regarding buying a laptop hard drive enclosure? Or is it just plug and play like the larger ones are? Any brands I should avoid?

[Mr_PeaCH]

May I suggest you upgrade to an iToddler?


You should at least run Malwarebytes on the toddler you have to see if he's responsible for trashing your hard drive.

You mean MalwareBrats, amirite? /heyO!

[RickH]

Performing further write operations on a drive that's proven itself flaky is BAD.

Yep, sounds like a progressive drive failure, with new sectors going bad every time its used. Consider it a salvage operation at this point.