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My Windows 7 instance is all corrupt on my Dell XPS laptop (my kid hibernated it as it was starting). I got the Windows 7 installation disc and I try to repair the installation. The repair goes through and it says done but it doesn't know if it repaired successfully. It just says reboot.

I can also open a command line and I run chkdsk /F manually in there. What's strange is that I've run it 20 times and chkdsk claims that it fixes stuff every time. Eventually it stops and I reboot. Much to my chagrin, my machine is still broken. Chkdsk gives an error at the end that it can't write a log file.

I've also run a full diagnostic using the Dell diagnostic tools. The tools say that everything is okay.

Any suggestions regarding what I should do next? Any help appreciated. mj

Edit - the hard drive was fried. Had it replaced and all is well.

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  • have you tried booting into safe mode?
    – Keltari
    Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 14:53
  • Do a simple chkdsk C: check on the C: drive. Does it say 0 KB in bad sectors.? Or do you have bad sectors > 0? If you have bad sectors, backup you stuff as fast as possible (of course you should already have a backup) because your harddisk is failing. If this number increases with every chkdsk, replace the harddisk.
    – Rik
    Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 14:54
  • I can't. My only options are "normal" and "repair". My machine reboots on both.
    – mj_
    Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 14:54
  • Press F8 right before Windows starts... Sometimes you have to repeatedly press it till you beat it.. Timing is everything. But what I would do in your case is back everything up, boot off of UBCD (Ultimate Boot Disc) and use the HDD diagnostic tool for your brand of hard drive, this will give you a pretty good indication of if your hard drive is failing or not...if it isn't, then you might find it worth while to reinstall Windows, if it finds bad sectors or errors you will probably want to replace it as there is no way of telling how long it will last.
    – TheXed
    Commented Nov 6, 2013 at 15:05

2 Answers 2

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I've seen this before. If you are concerned about the data on this drive DO NOT continue to use the drive until you are sure that it is healthy. The longer you use a failing drive the worse and more unreliable it becomes.

I think a good place to start with is a drive test, assuming this drive is a spinning disk and not an SSD. There are a variety of bootable disk utilities to test the health of Hard Drives and often times there will be built in diagnostics as well you can use. One simple but effective tool I like to use is Drive Fitness Test. This will tool will essentially go through the drive checking for bad sectors as well as performing a number of other checks in the process.

If DFT reports that the drive is failing (diagnostics in red box) you should check to see if the drive is still under warranty and if possible file an RMA claim to get it replaced. If it does not report any problems (green ok) then you don't need to worry for the time being about Hard Drive health and should look elsewhere for the problem.

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2 things are possible:

1 The disk is dying and develops more errors faster than chkdsk can correct. As others have already stated, you need to test this using a diagnostic tool. If the DELL one (if it does a hardware test on the drive) says the drive is not broken then the other possibility remains. Use another diagnostics tool to get a 2nd opinion.

2 The Windows installation is corrupted beyond repair. Each run of chkdsk will actually make it worse in that case. That can happen if the machine was hibernated on a very unlucky moment early in the boot process. You will have to format and re-install the machine completely.

In both cases I hope you have a good backup. Because that is the only thing that will save your data.

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