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
    2017-12-13T07:42:08+00:00

    I've had windows download updates and as I was messing with something else, had to restart and it started "updating" as it was shutting down. I said screw it, had to leave for work soon anyway.. The SOB was "updating" for almost 36 hours. I leave from one job and go directly to another before returning home so, around 17 hours later when I came home and was still on the same screen, I thought great, now I'm going to have to format and reinstall from disc again(as I've had to do this once with this laptop about 3-4 years ago) and maybe 10-15 after I came home, it changed to "update 2" as I was looking at the screen. Left it and went to sleep. 6 hours later I'm kinda pissed because had I been working on something important, I'd have been proper F****d. Sometime a couple few hours later, "startup sound" and no problems otherwise until now and I've been shooting hateful glances at this "might take over an hour" screen for 2:40 now... Problem is, I'm at work so it'd be just swell if it'd finish before 8am...

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  2. lmacri 2,505 Reputation points
    2017-12-13T14:23:03+00:00

    Hi MrBarlow0086:

    Before you try any repairs or reinstall of your operating system, please note that there is a currently a known issue where Windows Update can hang on "Checking for updates..." for several hours (or even days) on Vista SP2 computers and cause high CPU consumption and poor system performance.

    If you have a Vista SP2 OS please see the instructions posted on page 1 of m#l's thread Updates not working, it has been searching for updates for hours for a possible workaround.  Note the special instructions in that post if you have MS Office 2010, MS Office 2007 and/or the Office Compatibility Pack SP3 installed, since these older Office products can also trigger these "Checking for updates..." hangs.

    32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.5.0 * NS v22.11.2.7 * MS Office Professional 2003

    HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

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