computer issue

[ponderingturtle]

I am getting a weird thing when I start my laptop it runs startup repair and then fails. The error message is

Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 21201025
Problem Signature 05: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 06: 11
Problem Signature 07: CorruptFile
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033


This is windows 7. From looking online it seems that it might be that my hard drive died. How can I verify this or fix it in some other way.

[commandlinegamer]

Unlikely your hard disk is completely dead if you're getting this message. It may be bad blocks on the drive, a corrupt file as it seems to indicate, or an infection.

If you have a live linux CD handy, you could pop that in, set it to boot from that, and then check for errors on the hard disk. There's a specific command 'badblocks' which will report any it finds on the hard disk. If there are, then you want to get any critical data off there ASAP. Sometimes these errors can be repaired, not always; sometimes the drive still needs replaced.

Of course if it's an infection, a reinstall may be all you need to do (assuming again you can back up the data first).

[ponderingturtle]

Unlikely your hard disk is completely dead if you're getting this message. It may be bad blocks on the drive, a corrupt file as it seems to indicate, or an infection.

If you have a live linux CD handy, you could pop that in, set it to boot from that, and then check for errors on the hard disk. There's a specific command 'badblocks' which will report any it finds on the hard disk. If there are, then you want to get any critical data off there ASAP. Sometimes these errors can be repaired, not always; sometimes the drive still needs replaced.

Of course if it's an infection, a reinstall may be all you need to do (assuming again you can back up the data first).

I suspect I can pull the drive and read it in my external harddrive reader then wipe and reinstall to see if that works.

[ponderingturtle]

Well I got my computer working by reinstalling the operating system, now I just have to figure out how to get my bookmarks and history back.