Startup Repair -- how long is too long?

Anonymous
2010-03-17T13:27:39+00:00

I'm trying Startup Repair on a Windows Vista laptop that won't start up after having reportedly been shut down normally, after what sounded like a Trojan attack.  (Not sure what happened to it exactly, but my friend wasn't running antivirus software!)

Startup Repair says "Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete," but it's been running for about 9 hours now, and trying to Cancel it yields the message "The current repair operation cannot be cancelled" -- is it still actually doing anything? Would it be worth it to let Startup Repair run any longer?

Thanks

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2011-02-04T04:23:51+00:00

Sorry for not getting back to this thread at the time. In the case of the laptop I was having trouble with, the hard drive had to be replaced. I don't know whether the HD was the cause of the original problem, or shutting down the Startup Repair process damaged the HD.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-12-19T17:57:29+00:00

    How big is your hard drive 500GigaBytes?  1TeraByte?

    i have a 500GigaByte drive that has been at the "Startup Repair" ..... "This might take several minutes...  Attempting Repairs..." for over 12 hours. 

    The harddrive light is on continously ... solid. 

    Is there a rule of thumb that gives us an idea of time required to repair per GigaByte?

    MS: Please delete "This might take several minutes."

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-09-25T02:31:06+00:00

    Cekbl,

    When Startup repair was running what indication was the hard disk activity giving you? Mine blinks about 8 to 10 times quickly, then lights up for about 3 seconds. It just keeps doing this the whole time. It's been running almost 2 days now. Was your hard disk indicator showing any reading or writing activity for any more than a few seconds?

    Thanks for any response.

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-05-25T19:57:01+00:00

    Sorry to hear of your trouble. 

    In response-- 9 hours is not too long.  On my 11th attempt to have the resident startup repair (F8) complete, I had to let the computer run, uninterrupted for 3.5 DAYS. 

    A boot  from the recovery DVD worked, restoring the system (use F2 and modify setup to boot from CD/DVD first, then the internal  HDD ) . Then the F8, repair computer.  Days later, F8 again and safemode with networking.

    I have subsequently had no additional problems, but have decided to add norton utilities to my already functioning NIS2011.

    No virus was implicated-- just conflicts with software and drivers. the resident Windows utilities (used faithfully) and keeping drivers updated was insufficient to resolve all conflicts.

    patience paid off-- no $400 fee to have someone else restore the system.

    Good luck.

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-05-25T06:04:34+00:00

    If you cancel the startup repair sometimes it erases ALL the data on the disk and also corrupts the partition table making it beyond repair for most average users.

    I have had this happen twice,  (once when I restarted the pc during boot and 7 assumed there was an issue and since I was not paying attention it went into the dreaded startup repair loop)

    So anyways if you have a disk that will not partition download a copy of Hirens boot disk (google it it's free) and boot from it.  You can boot into a live windows xp environment and run all the tools you need to repair the partition table and re-format it.  You can also run the tools from dos without running mini xp.

    You can browse the web right from the pc that needs repairs and get any info you need.  I use it for 90% of the repairs I do.

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