# Startup Repair - system restore virus??



## cRise

Greetings,

So earlier today I turned on my other laptop and for some reason it would not open windows normally.

Instead I received a tab saying "Startup Repair" ;Your computer was unable to start.

The tab shows a loading bar saying attempting repairs..., however I have left if on for hours. When it shows "restart" the same thing happens.

I believe this is a virus? I can't even log into safe mode.

Please help!

Thank you~


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## johnb35

No this is not a virus as long as this is coming up before the windows splash screen appears.  This is vista trying to repair itself.


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## cRise

Why is it taking so long?

I can't even log in because this tab keeps poping up.


It says,

Windows Cannot Repair This Computer Automatically.
If you have recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera or portable music player, remove it and restart your computer. if you continue to see this message, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance. 

I click finish, and it restarts my computer yet the tab keeps popping up again. 

The tab re-appears and says "Your computer could not restart blah blah"

However, after trying all different options, it finally came to a new tab saying system recovery options 

username: (my original name when i first got my computer a year ago)
password: i dont remember it 

It also has a username called homegroupuser$ but i have no idea what or who that is


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## johnb35

Start by removing and reinserting the memory, not much you can since this is a laptop.  If that don't help, then you should check to make sure the hard drive is not failing by running a diagnostic on it.  Vista wasn't very good at repairing itself anyway.  You will probably have to end up reinstalling windows.


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## cRise

Instead of putting my password, i click next and it brought me to a page where it says choose a recovery tool

options are:

start up repair (definitely did not work)

system restore

system image recovery

windows memory diagnostic

command prompt


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## johnb35

You can try a system restore to a earlier date and see what happens.


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## cRise

reinsert the memory? you mean ram? physically?

And if I choose to reinstall how would I go about it? I don't have the cd that came with it. Do I have to buy a new one?


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## johnb35

Yeah, physically removing the memory sticks and reinserting them.  Sometimes when not using a machine for extended periods of time, this usually helps.  There should be a recovery partition that you boot into to reinstall windows.


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## cRise

wheres the recovery partition usually? sorry im new at this


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## cRise

anyone? please help


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## johnb35

Look in the documentation that came with the laptop on how to do a factory restore.  What model of laptop do you have?  Does it still have the original operating system installed that it came with?


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## S.T.A.R.S.

Just be aware that once you reinstall OS using either a recovery partition or recovery disk,all your data will be lost so back it up first using let's say Linux Ubuntu which you can boot from the CD-ROM disk since you cannot do that in Windows OS.



Cheers everyone!


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