I have a corrupt profile after a windows update. Can I repair advice?

Welcome back! Can you provide a link to the forums/threads that you have been asking questions? So we can review what's happened while you were away.

Looking at your laptop hardware, i'm not surprised that the system appears to be locking up. You have a slow disk access and this will take some time for data to be written to and from the disk. (Unless you have replaced the original shipped one for a SSD)

Patience is required!! I normally leave the computer to idle for 10-15 mins before using it, so it can get itself sorted out!

How big are your external disks? How much free space do they have on each?
Do you have/have you backed up ALL your original software installation programs? e.g. Office / Adobe / etc.

PenPusher said:

Welcome back! Can you provide a link to the forums/threads that you have been asking questions? So we can review what's happened while you were away.

Looking at your laptop hardware, i'm not surprised that the system appears to be locking up. You have a slow disk access and this will take some time for data to be written to and from the disk. (Unless you have replaced the original shipped one for a SSD)

Patience is required!! I normally leave the computer to idle for 10-15 mins before using it, so it can get itself sorted out!

How big are your external disks? How much free space do they have on each?
Do you have/have you backed up ALL your original software installation programs? e.g. Office / Adobe / etc.

seagate expansion freespace: 652 GBFree Agent Drive 19 GBMy Passport 116 GB (this one has a disc image on it that I think may have been from a previous laptop, or somebody else's computer. I don't really know, but it is from 2016. Also, for some reason, one year it was trying to automatically backup my laptop, and erased all stored data).

Office installation discs are in storage in another city. I have installation media for Adobe software. I had installed webcam software for recording on this profile, and some media player by cyberlink, which I do not know if this profile saved it or I need to redownload the installation software, as this profile tends to delete downloaded software. Avast and zonealarm software may or may not be somewhere on this laptop. I am not sure what will happen by attempting repairs if there are viruses in quarantine. I have Garmin software that is installed, but I am pretty sure that there is not installation media. I think that my previous GPS came with a disc, but the replacement GPS did not. I think that it has to be downloaded from the website. There is Adobe Media Player. I am not sure that that was included with one of the programs or from the Adobe website. It is possible that it came with Flash (which is in storage). There is HP software that probably does not have installation files; and some other software that I do not think that I have installation files anymore. Some of it is media converters, zip files opener, FTP client, and various freeware that basically must be downloaded. I know that a lot of passwords are not stored in a spreadsheet. Reinstalling the software (like iTunes) might not necessarily be problematic, but it seems like fixing the profile is likely ideal since the music was originally in the Music and downloads directory, and I was able to sync it with my iPhone.. I am not sure if there is more to say about these details.

Those hard drives seem to have a certain amount of space, and have backed up data and stored data from a previous laptop, as well as I have put things there from previous freelance work and stuff to access it externally most likely. Some data is on the largest one backed up for another computer (that is not mine).

I would get rid of any old images/data that do not apply to your laptop, to free up storage space.
Make an image of the hard drive using Macrium Reflect onto one of you're external drives.
You can run a program such as Belarc advisor to get most of your software keys for installed programs, save the results/print it off.

Go though your installed programs, do you really need them?? Most of us are guilty of hording programs, even ones we don't use very often/not at all.

The point is that most of us here would have reinstalled Windows by about post 15, and we are still here on post 93.
With your image using Macrium Reflect you can extract your documents/data etc after, if you still need it.

If you can't face doing it , then buy a new 2.5" hard drive for the laptop, swap out and install Windows/all you're other programs onto the new one, then you still have the old one! to fall back on.

A friend of mine will check my computer tomorrow regarding the screen and touchpad. I will have to try to back it up. I can't do the other things until I know if this is hardware or software issue (or both). I have read that somebody suspected the screen issue happened due to Windows Update, and the touchpad issue was a hardware issue. If it is simple, I can try to see if I can do a disc image.

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Okay, I have looked back at previous posts since I had wanted to backup software before getting my laptop looked at due to potential hardware problems. I had remembered that I can't really backup within Windows. However, due to a few issues, i am not sure this is possible:
1) the touchpad is not working again now, I can only use a mouse in Windows. I have a feeling that mouse may not work in the command prompt. It may work when notepad is used to access Explorer. However, I had noticed that that option requires a bootable media. I did notice that the tutorial seems to be for a Surface Pro though. I don't know how much space that needs, and if I need another USB drive for repairing Windows later, I may not have access to one. It depends on if your method only requires repairing the registry.
2) if I don't need to backup separate from Macrium Reflect, I don't have the media to make a disc image from my understanding (unless I can use an external hard drive). I can't just buy a single DVD.
If somebody is available, please explain. My system may need to be repaired before I can repair Windows, but I may not be able to make a disc image, and if I need a USB drive to back up windows, I may not be able to do that.

A double-sided DVD has 9.4 GB (twice the 4.7 GB of the usual, single-sided, DVD).

Advantages of thumb drives:
Capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB, and even 32 GB can be as low as $2 or so.
You can re-use them, or write over them if you have an update.

Disadvantages of thumb drives:
They can be accidentally overwritten.
It's hard to put a label on a thumb drive.
They can get lost, or mixed up with other thumb drives which is as good as getting lost.

Advantages of DVD:
Single-sided DVDs can be as little as $0.25 each. I haven't priced double-sided DVDs. You need to buy stacks of 25 or more to get that price. You can also get Blue-Ray disks for more, that have capacities of 25 GB, 50 GB, 100 GB, and 125 GB, and your computer can boot from them too.
They are non-volatile. They can't be accidentally overwritten.
You can label them with a marker. I use a label of a Recovery media, the OS build, and the date.

Disadvantages of DVD:
They are nonvolatile, and you can't overwrite them with an update.
You need a sleeve, and they take more room than a thumb drive.
Anything beyond single-sided CD or DVD, you need to make sure that your optical drive supports reading and writing them. A price-conscious Dell probably can't read a double-sided DVD or Blu-Ray disk, for example. You can buy a new optical drive, but optical drives that support double-sided media, particularly writing them as well as reading them, are more expensive than your $15 CD drive.

The Microsoft download for making an ISO of Windows 10 21H1 will just barely fit on a single-sided DVD; I did it this week. I have not been able to get a running Windows OS to write a rescue media that will fit on one DVD since build 1903.

I have an optical drive that reads and writes everything up to 100 GB, so I mix and match freely.