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    Windows Won't Boot, Startup Repair Never Completes

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Ghost_AWP, Nov 12, 2013.

  1. Ghost_AWP

    Ghost_AWP Notebook Evangelist

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    Hello Everyone. I have an Alienware M18Xr2 with a Crucial M4 256GB SSD installed. Yesterday morning my laptop booted directly into Startup Repair and hung for a few hours there. I rebooted and tried again and got the same thing. Tried restoring from last known good configuration and it booted into startup repair. Tried to boot into safe mode to restore from a restore point and it just booted into startup repair again. I spoke with Crucial support and they had me boot into the BIOS and let it sit there overnight. The thought behind this was that Trim wasn't working because my BIOS hard drive was set to RAID and Trim doesn't work in this setting (I didn't know this). My laptop has been setup this way for the last year. So I let it run overnight and then booted again and it still booted into Startup Repair and sat there for an hour without doing anything. I pulled the drive out and tried to access it through a USB adapter on a second computer and my file structure looks in tact. I ran Crystal Disk Info on the drive and it appears the drive is in good health. See attatchment.
    CD_M4.jpg

    I think something is wrong with the boot sector. Can someone tell me if there is a way to fix this?
    Thanks
     
    Ghost_AWP, Nov 12, 2013
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  2. JOSEA

    JOSEA NONE

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    IF you have a win 7 DVD or USB stick please try this How to Fix MBR in Windows 7 | eHow
    If you do not have one there is/was a thread in this forum sub section explaining to get an Iso file from digital river.
     
    JOSEA, Nov 12, 2013
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  3. Ghost_AWP

    Ghost_AWP Notebook Evangelist

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    I have the the W7 DVD. I booted to it and selected repair. Searching for Windows Installations box comes up. It continues searching for awhile. I think it is unable to find the Windows installation. I also ran a Dell diagnostic and the hard drive produced an error code 2000-0142 (Short Self Test Unsuccessfull). A little research suggests this is a hardware failure. It sounds like I will have to RMA the drive.

    +1 for the response.
     
    Ghost_AWP, Nov 12, 2013
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  4. Ghost_AWP

    Ghost_AWP Notebook Evangelist

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    To update anyone who viewed this thread....I reloaded my OS from a backup image and so far no problems have been detected with the drive. I ran a Disk Part, Clean command on the drive while plugged into another computer through USB. Then I reinstalled the drive and restored a backup image to the drive. It has been working stable for about a day now. So I may not need to RMA it afterall. The moral of the story is to always perform backups. I had to restore from my last backup done in April, but that is still better than nothing.
     
    Ghost_AWP, Nov 13, 2013
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