Okay, that was weird

[Ringel05]

Booted my primary computer and got a 'windows did not load' message followed by a automated repair program. When it was done windows loaded but was excruciatingly slow for about five minutes then seemed to work fine. Just restarted and it booted like nothing had happened. Never seen that before.

 

[PeteEU]

Check the hard disc... seen it before, and it was a failing hard disc.

 

[Ringel05]

Check the hard disc... seen it before, and it was a failing hard disc.

I wouldn't be surprised, hard drives and graphics cards are usually the first to go and I have some IT friends who swear the 7200 RPM drives die much faster than any of the others. I'll run the diagnostics (which I already planned to do) and check my back up to see if it's current then order a new drive.
Thanks.

 

[Iridescence]

gremlins

 

[Sallow]

Run a virus diagnostic. Post haste.

You may want to consider re-installing your operating system.

 

[Ringel05]

gremlins

Windows........

 

[Ringel05]

Run a virus diagnostic. Post haste.

You may want to consider re-installing your operating system.

Ran Avast, Malwarebytes and Stinger, all come up clean.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Sounds like something either at the front of the drive or a Windows registry blip.
Can you still run fdisk /mbr in Windows 7?

 

[Iridescence]

Avast is what I had been referred to as a beginner.

 

[PeteEU]

Sounds like something either at the front of the drive or a Windows registry blip.
Can you still run fdisk /mbr in Windows 7?

That command has not been valid for windows since at least Windows XP if not before as far as I remember.. might be wrong

bootsect /nt60 C:/ should be the correct command now days for windows 7 if you plan to fix the masterboot record... Although I doubt it is that.

 

[Ringel05]

Running chkdsk now. (Right click on My Computer select properties, tools, check disc for errors, schedule scan and reboot.)

 

[Ringel05]

No bad sectors found so I decided to do the simple thing and view the error activity report. (Duh.......)

Here's what was found and fixed:

The following file necessary for Windows startup was corrupt: d:\windows\system32\drivers\sfhlp02.sys

It's a StarForce Protection Helper Driver (version 2.x) which kept popping up earlier when I tried getting an older game to work on my Win 7 system, but D drive? That's the optical dive.