Windows 7 error 766f6c756d652e63 3f1 after power failure

Question

I have a Windows 7 desktop I bought several years ago, I don't have any installation disk. I am using it to write a book, it is not connected to internet, it does not get any upgrades.

Yesterday, just seconds after turning it on, I heard a loud boom outside, and the power went off. Since then, when I start the computer, the screen looks like this for a few seconds, then runs as normally. enter image description here

It says that I need to go to a restore point before it can do a disk check, but when I tried to do a restore point, it said that I need to do a check disk first. Can't win!

My question- as the computer otherwise seems to run OK, can I just ignore this? Or, if it is a sign of a problem, what must I do to fix it?

I have not installed any new software on this computer in a very long time. The only thing I have done on it in recent weeks is to create graphics (.bmp files).

I have not upgraded to windows 10 in part because I don't need to, and in part because of the time it would take me to deal with such an upgrade, all the software I wrote for this project would have to be recompiled.

Answer 1

Either the hard drive is going out, or else the disk may have suffered very serious data corruption as a result of the power failure.

Typically, I would suggest testing the hard drive (can you do this with the drive manufacturer's drive test app); then if OK, recover what you can; and then reinstall Windows.

Windows 7 is long out of support, so you can do the first two steps, but you may not be able to practically reinstall Windows 7. No updates for Windows 7 any more, which makes installing Windows 7 very difficult.

Most machines that run Windows 7 also should run Windows 10. You can download the Windows 10 ISO and install it once you have recovered what data you can.

I would be inclined to get a new disk if you are going to try Windows 10.