Stuck in Startup Repair

I have a Sony Vaio Laptop (VPC-EB-290X) that is about 3-1/2 years old, running Windows 7. No remaining warranty. On the one hand, I am a responsible adult who takes care of her belongings. On the other, this laptop got me through grad school and spent a reasonable amount of time being bumped around in a computer case. Last full virus scan was about 3 weeks ago, including the MajorGeeks protocol, with no major issues.

Saturday morning I used the laptop no problem. Closed the lid to put it asleep as I always do and set it aside. When I woke it back up that evening, it started, then froze as I was trying to open an internet browser. It’s done this before, especially if it’s been awhile since I restarted. So I turned it off with the power key. When I tried to start it back up, a DOS-like screen (black with white letters) came up, giving me the option to run Startup Repair or to start normally. I tried to start normally, and it would not complete. It hung on the animation, then after a few minutes flashed a “Blue Screen of Death” and rebooted, taking me back to the previous DOS-like screen. This time I let it try the Startup Repair. After a few minutes of sitting on a blue Windows desktop, it started the Startup Repair process of searching for errors.

I left it to sit overnight, about 18 hours total, and when I came back to it, it was still “searching.” A friend who has some knowledge of computers came over and, assuming that Startup Repair had stalled, turned off the computer to try again. It was again unable to start normally nor to start in safe mode (the same issue where it stalled and then rebooted). We turned the computer off and let it sit for a day.

Monday morning, I started the computer again and told it to run Startup Repair. When I got home from work (~10 hours later), it was stopped on the blue Windows desktop, not even getting to the Startup Repair. I turned it off and haven't touched it since.

Given the above info, any thoughts on what might be wrong or how to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome to Major Geeks.

Based on what you are describing, it sounds like the hard drive has gone bad.

You'll have to get a new 2.5" SATA hard drive and order a DVD recovery disk from Sony. If you need more information on how to replace the drive and/or attempt to recover files from the crashed one, please post a reply.

Hope this helps.

 

I agree with gman, sounds very ominous. If you want to convince yourself you can pop in the Windows 7 Repair Disk that you made when you first got the computer....err, you did make a repair disk, didn't you. If you don't have one then either borrow one from a friend or use a friends computer (running Win7) to make a repair disk. Check out these two links for instructions:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/create-a-system-repair-disc
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/create-a-windows-system-repair-disc/

Then go to this page to troubleshoot your problem using the repair disk:

http://www.winhelp.us/troubleshooting-windows.html

Then, when you realize that your hard drive is fried, you can go to this page to start the process of recovering data from that laptop

http://www.winhelp.us/data-recovery-cd.html
and/or
http://www.winhelp.us/recover-files-using-puppy-linux.html

Good Luck !

 

Thanks for your replies. A fried hard drive was what we were suspecting, too.

If I install a new hd and get the repair disk from Sony, it will basically be back to original/"new", correct? And then it's just the process of getting my old files recovered, which could technically be done at a later time?

 

Yes, using a proprietary "restore" disk typically returns the computer to it's "factory" state, and yes, you could do the data recovery at a later date. If you have any troubles with doing the recovery then post a new message to this forum. Good luck and sorry you lost your hard drive.