Professional cleaning: what's involved?

I've been poking around trying to get my brother's desktop to boot but I'm not having much luck.

In a nutshell, if you boot it up, it takes a half hour or longer before the hourglass stops. At that point, Windows gives up and takes you to the blue repair/recovery screens. I tried restoring to a restore point but nothing happened after I chose that option: five or ten minutes after I'd chosen that option, nothing whatever had happened. Maybe there are no restore points and the program isn't smart enough to recognize that and exit gracefully?

I tried the option that is meant to handle problems with Windows loading, which sounded very promising. The hourglass spun for a good long while, then I got a blue screen that said "Startup Repair couldn't repair your PC." It told me that it had written a logfile to C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt. I went to a command prompt which opened on an X: drive. When I tried to cd to the C: drive, it wouldn't go there. How on earth am I suppose to read the logfile which might reasonably be expected to have some useful information about the nature of the problem? It just seems cruel to write a logfile but not give you a way to actually read it.

I tried to reinstall Windows from the same media I used to install Windows yesterday but when I put the flash drive in and power the computer up, it immediately tells me that it is activating Automatic Repair, then it tells me "Diagnosing your PC" for several minutes, then it comes to the blue screen again that shows me the same logfile.

My BIOS is still set to enable Boot Menu and Removable Device is still first in my boot order.

What do I do to sort this out? The only programs on there besides the Windows install are two games, Asphalt 8 and World of Warships, both obtained from the Windows Store. Those should both be free of malware, right?

Layback Bear said:

Try using (F8) to choose your boot media with Windows 10. If it will boot you should get some repair options.

Jack

I tried your suggestion but the F8 just got ignored. (I hit it several dozen times in the first minute of booting.) It tried to boot from the hard drive, which again took a ridiculously long time - at least 20 minutes - and then brought me to the blue repair screens.

I went to Repair/Advanced/Advanced/Command prompt and this time got into the logfile that the process had named before. (It had been so long since I last did DOS commands that I'd forgotten that I need to do a C: command to change drives first before I try to cd to the desired directory.) I was able to read the logfile and it wasn't all that cryptic. However, I don't quite know what to make of it.

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Startup Repair diagnosis and repair log
---------------------------
Last successful boot time: ‎1/‎18/‎2018 6:43:05 PM (GMT)
Number of repair attempts: 8

Session details
---------------------------
System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory = C:\Windows
AutoChk Run = 0
Number of root causes = 1

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System disk test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 78 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 907 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 15 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Target OS test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 250 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Volume content check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 125 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Boot manager diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System boot log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Event log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 47 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Internal state check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 16 ms

Root cause found:
---------------------------
Startup Repair has tried several times but still cannot determine the cause of the problem.

---------------------------
---------------------------
Session details
---------------------------
System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory = C:\Windows
AutoChk Run = 0
Number of root causes = 1

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System disk test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 187 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 906 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 32 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Target OS test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 703 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Volume content check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 140 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Boot manager diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System boot log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Event log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 32 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Internal state check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 31 ms

Root cause found:
---------------------------
Startup Repair has tried several times but still cannot determine the cause of the problem.

---------------------------
---------------------------
Session details
---------------------------
System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory = C:\Windows
AutoChk Run = 0
Number of root causes = 0

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System disk test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 93 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 547 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Target OS test
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 250 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Volume content check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 16 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Boot manager diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: System boot log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Event log diagnosis
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Internal state check
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0 ms

Test Performed:
---------------------------
Name: Check for pending package install
Result: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x4
Time taken = 223453 ms

---------------------------
---------------------------

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Can anyone make out what the actual problem is?

The part of the log that catches my eye is the last bit. Up until then, all tasks end with return code 0x0 (although there are messages to the effect that various repair attempts had been unsuccessful) but the return code on the last one is 0x4, which traditionally indicates something not quite right but not catastrophic. Also, that last task takes over 200,000 ms (20 minutes) which seems way too much. But WHY did it take that long and what do I do about it?

Should I be moving this thread (or the last part of it) to the System Crashes area?

Layback Bear said:

Dell might use a different key other than (F8) to get a boot selection.
A Dell manual should give you that key or another member that uses Dell might drop by.

From post #81



What kind of CD did you try to boot from??

Jack

I didn't realize you wanted F8 to get to Boot Manager; that's F12 on my brother's computer. I didn't use a CD to boot from; I used a flash drive on which I'd created the Windows Installation media via Media Creation Tool.

My brother's PC seems to be back in business, although we still need to do some things to be absolutely sure it is going to keep working.

I put my installation flash drive in the PC first. When I pressed F12 at the start of the boot process, I got Boot Manager and it gave me an option to start with Boot Manager or UEFI flash drive. Naturally, I chose the latter. I chose the language and the localization for English (Canada). I was shown the partition map:

Code:

                                      Tot.Size       Free       Type
Drive 0 Partition 1: Recovery   499.0MB  138.0MB   Recovery
Drive 0 Partition 2                     99.0MB    70.0MB   System
Drive 0 Partition 3                     16.0MB    16.0MB   MGR (Reserved)
Drive 0 Partition 4                    930.9GB    859.8GB  Primary

I choose Partition 4 but it gave me a warning about the previous installation being moved to Windows.old if I did that. That seemed like it might be a bad thing so I deleted all of the partitions which led to the partition map saying simply this:
Drive 0 Unallocated space 931.5GB 931.5GB

I proceeded normally through the checklist. At the end, it restarted and because I hadn't removed the flash drive, it showed me the installation screens again. Just for the heck of it, I continued on and saw that the new partition map was very similar to the one I posted above with the 4 partitions, except that the free space in the primary partition was 482 MB. I deleted all the partitions again and proceeded. Again, everything went normally. When I got to the point where it was restarting, I removed the flash drive and it booted up normally to Windows. Then it did the normal install stuff - offering to set a pin, offering to work with other devices, installing updates and drivers, etc. - and finally completed the installation.

I installed Malware Bytes and ran a scan which didn't show any problems. Then I found and installed Macrium Free. I took a full backup of his system before installing anything else. I also set a recovery point in Control Panel. I began installing World of Warships for him but that's a big sucker - 22GB - and he has to go to work tomorrow, meaning he had to go to bed at that point, so it'll proceed overnight.

I told him to do the following tomorrow when he's back from work:
- reboot after the install of World of Warships finishes
- play the game for a few minutes then reboot again
- install his other game, Asphalt 8, then reboot again
- play Asphalt 8 for a few minutes, then reboot again

That may sound like an excessive amount of rebooting but that was where the problem arose after my last install so I want to be VERY sure that everything is working correctly before I mark this problem closed.

Please let me know if I should do anything else to assure that I don't have further problems.

essenbe said:

Open an elevated command prompt and copy/paste sfc /scannow, and press enter; just to be sure. It will only take a few minutes.

Make sure you configure it to make dump files, in case of problems Configure Windows 10 to Create Minidump on BSOD BSOD Tutorials

Enable restore points on the C partition Create System Restore Point in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials They do work well occasionally. Tell him to use them regularly. Especially before doing updates and installing programs that may cause problems.

Do regular image backups with Macrium

I always turn off Fast Startup Turn On or Off Fast Startup in Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

Okay, I'll do those things tomorrow morning while he's at work. (I may as well do all the rebooting and installing of the second game then too.)

I'll post back here if anything unexpected happens and mark the thread closed if all goes well.