My vortex II has ground to a halt - URGENT help required

[nbd2]

Ok, there is no way to describe this other than a disaster.

I've had my Vortex II for nearly a year now, and it's literally been phenomenal. Over the last 2 days though, something has gone catestrophically wrong with it. I'm not sure what, and I don't really know what is the best course of action, but i'll try to be as clear as to what's going on, and I'm hoping that someone can help.

So as you can imagine, I'm very careful with my laptop. I need it for college and work, so I really look after it as best I can. The other day, randomly, I got a blue screen on startup. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to get the stop code, the 0x0000##### or whatever it was. I've had that before on my old laptop and provided I get the 0x0 codes, I can usually find a solution. Anyway, the laptop restarted, ran chkdsk, and seemed to boot into windows ok. Within windows, however, it just does not work. Or at least not how it should. From booting into windows, Firefox took 25 minutes to open, for example.

I thought it was something possibly in startup, so I pretty much disabled everything in it, and still no luck. I know this can happen with new hardware, but the only new thing I've connected to it around the time that this all happened was my new phone, a Sony Xperia P, fresh out of the box, and it just came up as a mass storage device, so I can't see it being that. The only other thing I've done to try to fix this is ran a scan with Norton, but that came up blank.

Oh, and to make matters worse, I've no system restore points. Lesson learnt, albeit the hard way.

That's pretty much where things stand. I'm currently in Safe Mode with Networking until i can figure it out. That actually boots up as quick as it used to before this all happened. I'm not sure if that's relevant, but as much detail as i can give might help.

Anything you guys can suggest to tackle this will be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Neil

 

[vanthus]

If you installed any software for the phone try uninstalling it.Failing that have a look in event viewer to see if it gives you a clue to the problem.
Go to control panel(All control panel items)/performance information and tools/click advanced tools on the left hand side/view performance details in event log.
this will take you to diagnostics-performance & boot /shut down events.
It may or may not give a clue to the problem,but worth a try.
If nothing obvious showing there,at the top of the tree on the left hand side,click on custom views/administrative events.
You might get more information that points to something by selecting details/Friendly & XML view,in the event viewer.
you could also try selecting "event log online"at the bottom of the page.

 

[nbd2]

If you installed any software for the phone try uninstalling it.Failing that have a look in event viewer to see if it gives you a clue to the problem.
Go to control panel(All control panel items)/performance information and tools/click advanced tools on the left hand side/view performance details in event log.
this will take you to diagnostics-performance & boot /shut down events.
It may or may not give a clue to the problem,but worth a try.
If nothing obvious showing there,at the top of the tree on the left hand side,click on custom views/administrative events.
You might get more information that points to something by selecting details/Friendly & XML view,in the event viewer.
you could also try selecting "event log online"at the bottom of the page.

I had a look at the event log. There's a number of warnings, so I had a look through them, and i think i've spotted a few things.

The most obvious one was that on boot, my laptop seems to be trying to load (or maybe even search) for bullguard security, which I uninstalled a while ago. I checked msconfig for it, and it does seem to be there, but now its all disabled. A good start.

I disabled some more startup items, and boot times seems to be more or less back to normal. I know it's a slow process to re-enable them one by one, but I don't mind if it'll sort this out. Everything else seems to be ok, but for the next while, I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

Cheers for the help.

 

[vanthus]

Glad to help,I only ever have my antivirus program running on start up,but that's on a desktop,I know laptops are a bit different in that respect.

 

[nbd2]

crap crap crap!!!

I thought I was in the clear, but it's back to it's old ways. Fortunately, I get error codes this time.

Kernel_Data_Inpage_Error
Stop At 0x0000007A

So I googled it, and I'm just going through this page at the moment:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ror-code/03276fa2-6dcb-44d0-a778-499d5d00b65d

Now, although this may seem like a drastic measure, I'm toying with the idea of formatting my HDD and reloading everything. With my old laptop, I did that once or twice, and it generally helped to keep everything fresh etc, although like i said, I know it's a drastic measure. I'm keeping that as an absolute last resort at this stage.

 

[nbd2]

Ok, so I'm still having problems. Here's a update.

1. I can boot to safe mode and everything works fine in safe mode.
2. In normal windows mode, it'll work for about 2 minutes, then i get "The instruction at 0x000000013F8FD2D4 referenced memory of 0x000000013F8FD2D4. The required data was not placed into memory because of an I/O error status of 0xc0000185

After googling, in order to address it, I've done chkdsk, sfc, a Memory Check and ran SeaTools. Everything seems to be ok.

3. I thought I could do a repair install of windows 7 in safemode, but I got this:

These devices might not work properly after the upgrade. Before upgrading, we recommend updating the drivers for these devices. Cancel the upgrade, open Control Panel and search for "update device drivers", or go to the device manufacturer's website to search for updated drivers.

Android Phone: Android Composite ADB Interface
Android Phone: Android ADB Interface

These programs might not work properly after the upgrade. We recommend uninstalling these programs before upgrading. Cancel the upgrade, open Control Panel, and search for "uninstall a program". (Note: Programs marked as * can be safely reinstalled after the upgrade.)

iTunes (Please deauthorize computer prior to upgrade)
Sony Ericsson PC Suite 1.7.10

Now, the itunes thing I'm not worried about, but, the Sony Ericsson PC Suite is interesting. It was around the time I tried to connect up my new phone (a sony phone) that I started getting problems. However, I can't seem to find any trace of it on my laptop to get rid of it. Similarly, it wouldn't hurt to get rid of the android stuff either.

4. Trying to find a solution for this, many sites suggest that the HDD is failing. This seems odd to me, especially if everything works fine in Safe Mode. However, IF it would solve the problems, I'd be willing to get a new HDD, put this one in an external enclosure and get my files off it. Or, format this one that I have. I spotted a Seagate 720Gb 7200RPM 32MB Cache Hybrid 2.5" for about €100 locally, which, by the sound of it, would be a bit of an upgrade, and would also be a big help for doing dj work.

5. Yet again, I'm getting desperate. I really need help with this.

 

[BlueMirror]

I know very little about computers so if I was you I wouldn't do anything I say without making sure first. But I had a very similar problem with my old computer, but it worked perfectly fine, as good as when it was new, after I launched "Toshiba HDD recovery" which I think is similar to formatting. However I lost all my data.

 

[nbd2]

Yeah I suspect I'm going to have to either format or replace the hdd. It's still under warranty I guess, and I'm currently backing up all my files onto an external hdd, but it's a serious pain in the ass. I'd rather just fix it than have to go through all that. :/