Broken W10 install

Njal55 · 27 Aug 2015

Hi,
A few weeks ago I upgraded to W10 from W7 on my Lenovo laptop.
The laptop was about 3.5 years old, a little slow but generally worked fine.
The install process seemed to work ok, but since then I have had huge problems related to boot up and drive usage.

1. Boot up takes around 30-35 minutes. I'm not kidding - I googled this problem and people were complaining about 50s "very long" boot times. What happens is it runs a scanning and repairing drive check. The HD light is on solid for the whole time. Even after it says 100% complete it takes a further 20mins to startup. Sometimes boot fails at the last minute and the whole thing starts again.

2. Once up and running, things can work ok. Can. Then at some point disk usage goes to 100% and it's pretty much unusable. In task manager, there don't appear to be any processes using the disk much at all, but it's up to 100% with the light always on. It seems to me that this happens more often when I try to do something related to Settings or Control Panel or something like that. But even inserting a USB can do it.

There are some other relatively minor problems related to Sleep and screen timeout, but those too are crippling me and making me want to just buy a new laptop.

Oh, by the way, I tried to roll back to W7 and it said that couldn't happen because files had been deleted (they haven't) or were unnaccessable.

Night Hawk · 27 Aug 2015

Hello there, Njal55 Welcome to the Ten Forums!

By your description it sounds more like the hard drive is what is broken not the Windows 10 upgrade installation. If the OS drive is flaky from wear which is a bit more common in laptops then seen on desktops as the average you may just need to get a replacement drive! A friend who now has mainly stayed with laptops has had me reinstall Vista a few times on one old laptop and now runs two other 8.1 laptops to replace that old one!

Twice the hard drive seized up and called it quits! But he still hasn't bothered setting up the 7 Pro case that was put together and passed along to him once I replaced that case with a newer version and simply tossed some parts into the old. He still has to try 7 out and here we are talking about 10! And in your situation the files inaccessible while not having run the DiskCleanup tool seeing the Windows.old folder gone for good also seems to suggest a drive going on you.

Njal55 · 27 Aug 2015

Hi, thanks for your reply.
OK, so it sounds like a new drive or new laptop is the solution?
Such a pain - I can't even remember where I got half the software installed on there.
Sounds like time to start backing everything up!

Night Hawk · 27 Aug 2015

I've seen a few rather and even a brand WD Scorpion drive take a nose dive! If the laptop gets bumped around a bit the impact can effect a hard drive from the shock without even a scratch on the outside casing of the model you have. Another thing advised is some type of cooling pad since laptops being run for long periods of time can really heat up! That will have an effect on everything over time!

With the Vista laptop I redid a few times a parent loaned out to two sons in their teens and one key ended up missing off of the keyboard and you can be sure that got bounced a few times!

But simple every day use over time will still have it's wear and a drive going bad can't be ruled out entirely. It never hurts of course to have a spare you can always use in an external enclosure for a backup drive as well as simply having an extra laying around.

xtcrefugee · 27 Aug 2015

Google "ultimate boot cd", it's a set of diagnostic utilities that can hopefully tell you what the problem is if it's a piece of failing hardware. It includes hard drive checking utilities from the major manufacturers, memory tests, etc. Ultimately there's no point in trying a clean install if you're dealing with dodgy hardware. If the system is still bootable, now is the time to copy off anything you really don't want to lose, before running the tests.

If it passes all the tests, it's a problem with the installation itself (corruption, bad drivers, etc.) and your choices are a huge amount of Googling to try and find a fix, or doing a clean install.

Night Hawk · 27 Aug 2015

The manufacturer of the laptop itself can be a help at times as well since they have their own support system inplace there. Since you didn't post the model you are having problems with the support page at the link here can auto detect the model and bring you to the download page for updates as well as anything else they provide. Products - Lenovo Support (US)

I was having similar access problems with one of the two matched storage drives where it was taking a longgg time to access the drive when going to copy anything to it, from it, or download to it and would wait for quite some time first replacing the sata data cable since this is on a desktop and suddenly it worked well for some time and then acted up again. It now sits in an external enclosure having moved the other working drive into a second case and replacing those two with one I had from an older build plus a brand new larger capacity model to jump up from the pair of 1tb to 3tb total the new one being a 2tb model. That however was after 5yrs. of use in a stationary setting.

Njal55 · 28 Aug 2015

It's a Lenovo G550.
I ran chkdsk on C:/ yesterday and nothing.
Downloaded ultimate boot cd and will play with it.
Meanwhile, backed everything up of value (I hope).
Also noticed I have a program which won't work because it says it doesn't have access to postreg. Not sure whether that is related.

Night Hawk · 28 Aug 2015

As far as the program that might need either a repair if the installer has that option or see a fresh install go on again since that type of error usually points to either folder removed, a file being lost, or something got unintentionally moved to a new location, or even a registry entry was lost. At first things might seem to go well but the finding have been that a higher percentage of upgrades from 7 which is three versions older then are subject to seeing more glitches! This would appear to be where all of your problems can be stemming from as well as being sure the drive is still in working order or simply having a need for the wipe and clean install.

One out of Three was a success story here but now the OEM primary on a laptop has to be nuked requiring another clean install after a fresh primary goes on. As for the Ultimate CD that should be considered now to be obsoleted originally intended for XP, Vista, 7 not for 8, 8.1, and now 10! The old 3rd party wares will only tend to make things worse when a problem with a brand new version!

As suspected there wasn't much you can find at the Lenovo support site about that model in particular since the search there came up empty using that model number as well as the only G series model being the G70. Using the 500 series approach simply ended up at vendors who have no listing for the older model you have there. Too often new models come out so fast the next in line bumps the previous off of the charts! Only one place even saw actual specifications for what you have there. Lenovo G550 [Laptop Specifications Central]