Troubleshooting System restore taking 4ever!

[Rawad Saeed]

Describe the problem

System restore lag

What have you tried?

Attempted Windows system repair

Hello everyone.. I have a problem with my HP notebook.. I have scared it via avira free anti-virus.. And it detected some viruses.. So it said that do you wanna fix your pc.. Said OK and it requested a reboot.. After the pc turned off.. I'm not able to boot into Windows now.. So I tried Windows system repair.. It suggested a restore.. So I started restoring Windows and now it's been 3 hrs and no response at all.. What to do.. Please help! ☺

 

[ChoiceVoice]

let it run its course, it may be stuck, or it maybe very slow. in the past i've been overly impatient and mucked up my system by cold booting it. check it tomorrow morning, if its still stuck, then it maybe time for more drastic action. and if my antivirus toasted my system, i'd replace it immediately.

 

[comfortablynumb15]

I know sometimes these issues can be a bit confusing, but can you be a bit more specific about what happened before you tried this restore? What antivirus were you using and what did it detect? Did it ask you or try to quarantine or remove these viruses before it told you to reboot? Generally if an AV requests a reboot, it means the malware has processes running and the AV can remove them only once the computer is going through its boot process. Sometimes the removal process can take a bit, and that can cause you to not see anything on the screen yet or the booting to take quite some time. Malware tends not to let go without a fight

Never, ever do a system restore if viruses are even thought to remain in place. All a system restore will do then is return the computer to the exact state it was in beforehand..viruses and all. If you have your Windows DVD there and the system doesn't respond soon, you can try booting from it (if your system BIOS is set to check the CD/DVD drive first instead of the hard drive).

 

[Rawad Saeed]

let it run its course, it may be stuck, or it maybe very slow. in the past i've been overly impatient

I know sometimes these issues can be a bit confusing, but can you be a bit more specific about what happened before you tried this restore? What antivirus were you using and what did it detect? Did it ask you or try to quarantine or remove these viruses before it told you to reboot? Generally if an AV requests a reboot, it means the malware has processes running and the AV can remove them only once the computer is going through its boot process. Sometimes the removal process can take a bit, and that can cause you to not see anything on the screen yet or the booting to take quite some time. Malware tends not to let go without a fight

Never, ever do a system restore if viruses are even thought to remain in place. All a system restore will do then is return the computer to the exact state it was in beforehand..viruses and all. If you have your Windows DVD there and the system doesn't respond soon, you can try booting from it (if your system BIOS is set to check the CD/DVD drive first instead of the hard

Thanks for replying, I'm using Avira AV, and yes it moved some files to quarantine before rebooting.. BTW when it was booting a blue screen appeared then the computer had rebooted automatically.. Then system repair started by its own.. And now I'm still waiting for the restore process to complete

 

[comfortablynumb15]

Okay, so you had a BSOD (the blue screen) while it was trying to reboot so that probably means there is some file corruption going on there or possibly Avira had a conflict with something during the process. I think at this point, in order to avoid any other damage to the system you should break out that Windows DVD if you have it. You can try to cold boot the system first by turning the power button off and back on again, but that can also cause more problems. If you can get the system restarted from a cold boot, and this machine is a big box brand like Gateway or Dell you can try to use the restore partition they all put on their systems these days. Usually it will be listed under the Startup menu where all the other programs are listed. HP I know uses restore partitions, so if you can get the system to at least show the desktop again, try to do it that way.

Be aware though that you may end up needing to let the restore process set the system back to its factory state, so you may lose some things. I wish I could give you more help, but it's very difficult to diagnose such issues over the internet a lot of times. Hopefully someone here knows a heck of a lot more than I and can see you through this. I'll keep an eye on this thread of course and help in any way I know how.

 

[Rawad Saeed]

Okay, so you had a BSOD (the blue screen) while it was trying to reboot so that probably means there is some file corruption going on there or possibly Avira had a conflict with something during the process. I think at this point, in order to avoid any other damage to the system you should break out that Windows DVD if you have it. You can try to cold boot the system first by turning the power button off and back on again, but that can also cause more problems. If you can get the system restarted from a cold boot, and this machine is a big box brand like Gateway or Dell you can try to use the restore partition they all put on their systems these days. Usually it will be listed under the Startup menu where all the other programs are listed. HP I know uses restore partitions, so if you can get the system to at least show the desktop again, try to do it that way.

Be aware though that you may end up needing to let the restore process set the system back to its factory state, so you may lose some things. I wish I could give you more help, but it's very difficult to diagnose such issues over the internet a lot of times. Hopefully someone here knows a heck of a lot more than I and can see you through this. I'll keep an eye on this thread of course and help in any way I know how.

Oh.. I tried cold boot now but the blue screen appeared again.. I do have the system Dvd.. But all my college work is there.. I can't just restore it to factory state sorry but I wanna ask.. Do ya know any possible way to fix this problem without losing my data?

 

[comfortablynumb15]

I would still try to use the system DVD to boot the system to a possibly usable state. It sounds like you have a major system file or files that got corrupted or even destroyed, and only the Windows DVD will fix that. The DVD will try to find and fix any bad/missing files, which might solve the boot issue, and it will, if it can, only mess with those files. But, be prepared for data loss. It may not happen, but it very well may too. If you get the system back to a usable state again and get everything sorted out, look into replacing Avira with something like Panda Cloud. Last but not least, watch what you're downloading out there and the websites you are visiting. An AV with a good web filter can work wonders.

Edit: Make sure when you run the Windows install DVD to use the "System Recovery Options" menu, and then "Startup Repair".

 

[OokamiCreed]

Not only would a start up repair possibly help, try running the command "sfc /scannow" without quotations. This will scan and verify system integrity, along with attempting a repair. This option is in the same place as Startup Repair. Just click Command Prompt at the bottom.

In my testing, some AV's will delete registry keys that they find malicious (this includes files but isn't as likely as deleting registry keys), and by doing so, a BSOD or black screen will show on boot. Startup repair and the command I put above have worked in repairing this problem.

 

[comfortablynumb15]

Thanks for that Ookami, it's something I should have reminded the OP of but completely slipped my mind. It should also be said that that scan may see you growing a beard before it completes sometimes

 

[jamescv7]

No need to panic, I've conducted system restore before and it takes 5-7 hours upon completion.

What are the things you've done before Avira detected some viruses? So to see if there's a erroneous detection happen.

Once the system restore is complete, observe first if any BSOD may happen and went its occurres. Use a tool called BlueScreenView and post the findings here.

Is that a Windows 8/8.1 OS? The thing you can save if system restore fails is either Refresh (your documents are retain) or Reset PC.

 

[OokamiCreed]

Note that Windows 8/8.1 OS has command prompt and a startup repair type feature called "Automatic Repair".

1. Boot DVD
2. Click "Repair your computer"
3. Click "Troubleshoot"
4. Options are in there

If you have Windows 8 you should take part in options that @jamescv7 posted - "Refresh" and "Reset PC" however I do not know how to access this if your computer will not boot as it is in the settings. I'm pretty sure these settings are available without booting into Windows. These will do much more good than using a general repair of your system. It will also clean any infections that you may have by wiping them out and only leaving in documents, etc (depending on your selection). I can't off the top of my head remember if installed programs are kept. If they are, I believe anti-virus and firewalls will be dysfunctional. Could be wrong.

This is how it worked on Windows 7 if you "refreshed" it by installing the OS over top of your current without wiping the partition/drive.

 

[WinXPert]

Yesterday I fixed a non-bootable Win 8 netbook. All I did was refresh windows. All the documents are still intact. All I did afterwards is to reinstall an AV, FF and Flash/Shockwave.

 

[comfortablynumb15]

Yeah it's going to boil down to what OS we're talking about here. Kind of hard to do anything if your screen stays black.

 

[WinXPert]

if you have some BSOD issues, what's the BSOD code? also provide some minidumps and some info about your rig, instead of having people helping you look in the dark also

 

[MalwareT]

My system was corrupted yesterday,so i used AOMEI Backupper to restore it back. I had to boot on rescue cd to restore it and everything was fine Never store backups on main partition.

 

[Rawad Saeed]

The problem is Solved.. btw non of the options you provided attempted any repair in my case.. Everything I tried just didn't work.. Ended up waiting a spinning circle.. But what I did was installing another Windows 7 OS on my notebook over the old Windows.. Backed up my data.. Then used the recovery partition HP had provided with the pc.. It's kinda silly option.. But I won't be pleased if I lost my college docs and family photos.. Thanks 4 everyone who had participated in solving my issue..

 

[comfortablynumb15]

Sometimes the silly option is the only option you have, hehe. Make absolutely sure your data is clean by running an AV scan on them. The last thing you need now is a clean OS with infected documents.