Windows 10: So many problems! Error messages. Please read and help if you can

Hi Squibbler. I'm glad you were able to get your RAID settings back! Just curious how/what you are backing up (i.e. using Marcium Reflect to back up to an external HDD?). Am also curious as to how many drives you have in the PC (if you mentioned this in a previous post i missed it). Typically you need a min. of 2 to do RAID. If you are doing RAID on a single drive, even if this has been working, it isn't a good idea. For Raid on a single drive you typically need 2 partitions, so you are basically giving up 1/2 your drive and taking a performance hit as well. Aaron

 

Hi abenavraham. I have two x 750GB drives... set up as RAID 0 by DELL...i have no idea why they did it like this. I had a java virus 4 years ago and had to wipe everything, redo the drives and start again. I was aware a little of the risk with RAID 0 after reading about it at the time but figured there was a reason for DELL doing it this way and as was anxious to get everything running again stuck to it.. mistake! (I think I had a system image from when it was virus clean and so worried it wouldnt work on a different hard disk setup).
RE backups - I have an old fashioned method - plug in external drives and copy across! I dont have a vast amount of new data each week and so got lazy. I need to be more diligent. I have been good with photos.. they have a backup drive to themselves, but not been good with backing up my PST file or recent genealogy documents. I don't want to pay high storage fees in the cloud or need expensive software for my small amounts, but I need to make sure I do it regularly.

 

@Squibbler That will get your data backed up for now, but, your photos and docs and such are not the only thing that seriously need backing up. The system, the OS itself and all supporting files need a good backup. There is no more highly recommended FREE software than Macrium Reflect. Most highly recommended on this forum and elsewhere. @abenavraham is hinting at it...take his advice and download it and use it. Help with it (it's easy) is everywhere on this forum. Here's the link. ........... TC

Macrium Reflect Free | Macrium Software

 

TC, thanks so much for your help! I can't rep you (gotta spread the love around), but you sure deserve it! Thanks! *Thumbs

 

@Squibbler
TC is right - a complete backup should be made including the OS, so you image all the partitions to the external drive.
Once that is done, we could try the in-place repair to get things running smooth again.

 

Is the operating sytem worth backing up right now if it is so screwed up though?

 

I did make an image of the computer after I moved to win 7 years ago when it was running nicely and nice and clean.. not made one since. I should have done so when I moved to win 10, I know ...will certainly look at the software if free, but meanwhile... should I not wait if it is all so screwed up? I don't want to make an image of screwed up files surely?

 

"Is the operating sytem worth backing up right now if it is so screwed up though?"

Possibly

We still need to figure out the health of your drives. What Raid Controller is installed? When you boot is there any option to bring up the controller/array menu to determine the health of the drives?

Can you bring up a command prompt when the system is booted? If not press and hold the "Shift" key while clicking on restart. This will allow you to boot into a trouble shooting mode where you can bring up a command prompt and run scan disk from there.

If scandisk finds any bad sectors then you will need to replace the drive(s)

 

Don't mean to sidetrack your questions and your direction. But if the system boots up now and is at least usable enough to try to fix, a complete image is in order. If nothing else, it's a base that can be restored if further "surgery" is attempted, and goes sour. It's a known point. Takes 15 minutes, max 30. One benefit of Macrium is the ability to have multiple images, so it's not either now or later, it can be both, and ongoing. Food for thought.

 

If you image the system as it currently is, you will at least have access to all the data on the drive if you you end up wiping and/or replacing bad drive(s). After applying the image to the now wiped or replaced drive(s), at that point I would try doing an in place upgrade with Creators update from and ISO (either booting from a Flash drive or DVD. This might fix the issues, and leave the existing programs in place that you no longer have disk/license info about. Worth a shot. Obviously this may not work...

 

During boot up, after post and before loading windows holding the shift key +I key will probably bring up the Raid Configuration options. I'm not sure why you would need to though, you know your 2 hard drives are in Raid 0.

You do not need expensive cloud storage. Just a couple of external hard drives. I image to 3 different external drives. A different one each time. I image about twice a week. That allows me to go back to most any point in time in case of a virus or any other problem. Plus consider, it is not a question of if a hard drive dies, it is a question of when it will die. They all do eventually.

 

The RAID controller menu, whether it is from accessing one a boot time, or a utility app once the system is up and running can tell you about the health of the drive(s).

 

Ok some good advice here... I am nearly done with basic backups of the files that I feared to lose ... I have a separate brand new external drive that I can try and do an image on... not sure how much space it will need and this drive has previous backups and images on already ...will attempt that tomorrow as getting late here ...however, I wonder if Macrium will struggle to load on my desktop since the other file associations errors were coming up for those other programs? Would loading it onto desktop be the best place or in its own directory?

 

Would it be possible to post a screenshot of your Disk Management display?

 

TC, his OS is messed up, and the only way to try a Macrium image would be to boot to a Macrium stick, or Kyhi's media (which has Macrium on it). The ultimate intent is to perform an in-place repair install to get his OS working properly again.

We were going to boot to Kyhi's media, determine HDD health, perform CHKDSK and then backup.