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Question

Dell laptop stuck on windows welcome screen

Nov 13, 2014 7:12PM PST

Ran in to another issue with my Dell Inspiron 15. The computer froze on me and after a few minutes of no response I held down the power button and forced it to power down. When I restarted I couldn't get it past the windows welcome screen

Computer will boot to the screen that allows me to choose which windows user to log in with. I have my normal user profile that I use (admin) and a guest account. When I choose my normal account and enter my password it will stay on the screen as if it is preparing to log on to windows but never does. (I've kept it like that for over 4 hours, no result)


I can however get in to the guest account but for some reason there is no internet connection available and if I attempt to do admin user controls it freezes up after entering the admin password. I'm really confused here. This is what I've attempted so far


Doing the "shift & restart" option and choosing Automatic repair. After attempting Automatic Repair I got this error:

D:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt


I went back and tried to do a system restore. After attempting system restore, I got this:

-
System restore filed while scanning the file system on the drive D:\ The drive might be corrupt. Try system restore after running chkdsk /R on this disk

An unspecified error occurred during system restore (0x81000204)


Rebooted once again to the command prompt, entered my admin password and typed the chkdsk /R command on the D drive. I get this message:


- The type of file system is NTFS.

Cannot lock current drive.
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPEN HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)


- I chose yes and after 2 hours I got this message after the scan was finished:


- Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50

This is where I'm stuck at now. Any suggestions would be appreciated as always

All the best

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: laptop problems
Nov 13, 2014 7:29PM PST

Obviously something is very wrong.

It's a pity you didn't make a spare admin account. That's a recommended thing to do as soon as you get a new machine. Then you can login in that spare account if the one you use normally is corrupted, like it is now.

It's uncommon that Windows is installed on the d:-drive. Did it come like this, or did you do that yourself?

In this case, after making a backup of your files to an external hard disk (can be done after booting to a Linux disc), I'd use the diagnostic tools from Dell to check the hardware (especially the hard disk) and then go back to factory conditions in the way defined for this model (recovery disks or recovery partition).

Kees

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Thanks for the reply
Nov 13, 2014 9:07PM PST

Hi Kees,
It does obviously seem theres a big problem here, I dont understand how this is happening. I've never changed the windows drive or would even know how to do that so I'm not sure why it's there. I did run a diagnostics in the Dell boot menu and it said there was no issues found.

Do you know for sure from my previous post that windows is on the D drive? If not is there a way I can check?

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Re: d-drive
Nov 13, 2014 10:27PM PST

In your post I read "D:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt". That seems like the d:-drive, doesn't it? But of course you can check in Explorer.

If the diagnostics find no problems, it might be time indeed to see what happens if you do the recovery to factory conditions. But better wait until other members had their say.

Kees

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To Kees
Nov 14, 2014 5:09AM PST

Yes it does, you would probably be more sure about that than me. I'm gonna stick it out and see if I get some other possible solutions before doing the full restore. The important files are backed up to one drive but i have programs on there I use like Photoshop that I want to still be able to access without having to start all over again. I appreciate your help

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Answer
boot to Safe Mode
Nov 14, 2014 2:11AM PST

You should see an Admin user appear then. If you set a password on it, hope you remember. If not, then just leave password blank and enter it. You can then set up second admin user different from the one you can't access, just so you have it available. While in the main Admin mode, try and rescue your previous profile.

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re safe mode
Nov 14, 2014 5:06AM PST

When rebooting it gives me the same results. I click the admin user enter the correct password and its stil stuck. I can only get in via guest user

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(NT) try it without any password
Nov 14, 2014 7:49AM PST
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Tried w/o password on admin login
Dec 2, 2014 12:57PM PST

It says invalid password

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Re: Safe mode
Nov 14, 2014 4:26PM PST

In Safe mode in XP there should be an extra (normally hidden) user on the welcome screen, called "administrator" (without a capital). And unless you changed it, it has no password, so you just press enter to log in. Then you might be able to do some checks and corrections, or simply built 2 new accounts with administrator capabilities.

That's what James meant. And I don't think it's your "Admn user" and password.
Kees

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(NT) Using windows 8
Dec 2, 2014 12:57PM PST