Unexpected “can’t Repair Your Pc”

I rebooted, and Win10 unexpectedly said it “couldn’t repair” my PC. Troubleshooting didn’t help, so I just selected “Continue on to Windows 10.” Everything SEEMS fine, but I have my doubts. What should I do?

 

Hello,

What was the purpose of the reboot? i.e. virus scan, program install/ uninstall, or Windows Update?

You can also look in the “Event Viewer” to see the error if it was recorded by the system.

You may also want to run “sfc /scannow” in Powershell or Command Prompt.

HumbleServant1611

 

Sorry for the delay in responding, Tim, I was away.

No, there was no CD or DVD in the drive.

I rebooted because my PC started running slowly, and I couldn’t find any reason for that. As usual, it ran at normal speed after rebooting.

In Event Viewer for that date (Thursay, 26 April), I see only Application, Enabled. This seems odd to me, since WinPatrol always asks me if I want to allow any changes to my PC, and I always reject those changes that I didn’t initiate myself.

Before running sfc /scannow, could you please confirm that it won’t make any changes to my system without prompting me for confirmation?

 

The System File Checker (sfc /scannow) will repair system files without any prompts.
If you want to know about any repairs, run this.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/sfc_utility.html

 

Hi, Eldon. I ran sfc/ scannow, but as you can see, it didn’t find any integrity violations.

However, I just rebooted again, and again I got the “Can’t repair your PC” message.

 

Thanks for the link, Tim. But I had Advanced SystemCare install Driver Booster, and I updated my drivers, and the “Can’t repair your PC” error on bootup disappeared.

 

Even though it appears fixed, I'd still download and install a free hard disk testing program like Western Digital's Data Lifeguard or Seagate's SeaTools. For running a long (sector by sector) drive self test (DST) either program will work on any brand of hard drive.

The long DST will often catch problems a SMART or short DST misses. Even a few bad sectors found means the drive is on its last legs and should be replaced. Data Lifeguard also allows you to clone the old disk to a new one so long as at least one of the drives is a Western Digital brand.

Hopefully you're backing up all your files on a regular basis. If not, consider what happened to be your warning shot and do so immediately. Sadly, I have at least one customer per week with a totally dead hard drive containing irreplacable photos, work documents, etc. that had never been backed up and are now lost forever.

Hope this helps.

 

I recently downloaded and installed SeaTools, but I haven’t run in yet. For what it’s worth, I’ve been doing complete scans, including for bad sectors on disk, with Advanced SystemCare and Glary Utilities every few days. They DO occasionally find a few bad sectors and “repair” them. But I’ll run SeaTools’ long DST scan if you think that would do a better job.

I occasionally back up more current images of my hard drive using Macrium Reflect.

For data backups, I’ve got OneDrive, plus I periodically just copy files to a couple of 128 GB flash drives.

I don’t think my hard drive is on its last legs, because it’s only about a month old.

 

HDDs often fail in the first weeks; if you've been seeing bad sector reports already, I'd be approaching the drive vendor with the SMART stats/SeaTools results with a view to getting a replacement.

 

Wow, thanks for the tip, I'll run SeaTools today and see what's what.

 

Personally, I have found any hard drive that 'often' has bad sectors is on it's way out - I have had under 6 month old hard drives go - Seagate replaced them without any hassle.
I would strongly consider gman863,and Satrow's warnings.

 

My hard drive hasn’t often had bad sectors, but it did I think twice.

I ran a long generic scan in SeaTools and the drive passed (see attachment).



However, when I rebooted just now I still got the “Can’t repair your PC” error.

I think this problem first surfaced right after I installed Smart Defrag from Advanced SystemCare, if that means anything.

Any suggestions on what I should do now?

 

If Smart Defrag performs a boot defrag, maybe that is broken. Have you checked to see if SD does this? If so, maybe turning off would stop the messages. Just a wild guess, but as an example, Comodo Programs Manager performs file removal sometimes during boot, and it posts a message. Haven't seen an error, but I thought maybe your situation could be tied to Smart Defrag somehow, so maybe in this way...

 

Even if multiple tests give it a passing score, I'll still replace a drive if it fails my "JDLR" (Just Doesn't Look Right) test:

1. I'm absolutely sure the drive is free of viruses and malware.
2. I've run DCIM and SFC to eliminate any possibility that Windows is damaged or corrupted.
3. The PC still runs slow, freezes or has boot issues ("JDLR").

My success rate with this has been in the 90% range; the exceptions being an underlying motherboard issue.

Time is money and data loss can be catastrophic. As cheap as standard drives are now, I treat them like potato salad that's spent a few too many hours out of the 'frig: When in doubt, throw it out.

 

Edit: I should have included defragging the drive in the above list.

 

In command prompt, you can try
rstrui.exe
This should start system restore.