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W8.1 Freezing
mrwoof:
Sorry for the break in communication, life getting in the way.
Am unable to complete the DISM Cmds & I see Win system error reporting files of 1.3Gb. To me this indicates multiple issues. As the device is deteriorating its time for me to consider my recovery plan.
I dont have a Win 8.1 disc but do have the key. Rather than use my earlier macrium image I'm considering going with a fresh install.
However your last point on W 8.1 repair disc might do. I will read the link for repair. Question, would a system image disc, in my case a W8.1 ISO 3.9 Gb. have a repair element?
Re the final solution, nuke & pave please advise me if my procedure is sound as I haven't done this for years.
1. swap out the SSD and fit the original drive with W 8.1 OS that I replaced several months ago and kept intact just in case! Confirms my hardware is sound.
2. Put SSD in USB enclosure and copy data across.
3. Download & burn W 8.1 ISO to disc
4. Refit the SSD, boot to CD and install new OS
5.Apply current Acer drivers
Am unsure about fresh install on populated SSD. Does it overwrite or is there a procedure / auto to clear the SSD drive?
Thank you for the time you spent with me on this issue, for me it has been an opportunity to learn and reminded of the diagnostic labyrinth we inhabit. Got familiar again with Event viewer and CMD line which I havn't used in years of stable use.
Boggin:
I'm not sure what that system image disk is unless you are wrongly describing it, but you can download an 8.1 ISO from https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows8ISO
I don't know if this includes the options to create a bootable DVD or USB as the Win 10 ISO download does, but you can use Windows own DVD/USB Burner Tool which will give you the option of DVD or USB in which case you would select Save on the download.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56485
You could also use your Macrium image to restore your SSD with or put your HDD in, bring that up to date and create an image of that and then stick your SSD back in and restore the SSD with that image.
The difference in size of the HDD to SSD could create a problem with that solution as while I've restored a new 1TB with an image from a 640GB HDD, I had to factory reset back to Win 7 from Win 10 because I ended up with about 350GB of unallocated space which I was unable to extend to C: because it wasn't immediately to the right of C: because of Win 10's recovery partition.
I think I'd go for the repair install to see if that will complete - you haven't said if the machine has stopped freezing.
Where did the product key come from ?
Where did you get the error reporting of 1.3GB of files from ?
Did you get an error message from the dism cmds and did you run a sfc /scannow which would report if there was corruption it had or couldn't repair ?
mrwoof:
Well as the freeze in under 3 minutes continues, none of the dism / sfc Cmds could complete. I found the reference to the 1.3 Gb in ccleaner and I recovered my product key some time ago with a third party tool. As my current configuration is a clone of an upgrade (8 to 8.1) from 2014 its an opportune time to do a fresh install. I'm used to working with the 250 Gb SSD, the bulk of my data is on external drives. I'll peruse the links to MS for that 8.1 ISO next week. Now I have found a Recovery file that I generated on a USB after I bought this laptop, however I stupidly copied that file to my laptop rather than cloning it. Am I right in thinking it will not work as a result?
Boggin:
It probably won't as it's something you would normally boot up with for it to work.
There's one other thing you could try before you go the whole hog and that is an offboot sfc /scannow.
When you have downloaded the ISO and have created the install disk, boot up with it and navigate to the Install screen to click on Repair your computer.
From there, navigate to the Recovery Environment to select Command Prompt.
At the cmd prompt enter bcdedit |find "osdevice" and use the that partition letter instead of the X I have exampled and enter -
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=X:\ /offwindir=X:\Windows
and that will check your system against the install disk and hopefully repair any corruption.
In the bcdedit cmd, for clarity that is a Pipe symbol before find and is the uppercase of \
You need to execute that cmd as in that mode it doesn't always see the volume as being in C:
Boggin:
On reflection, with that many files corrupted, can you boot up into Safe Mode with Networking and run an antimalware scan with the free version of MBAM.
https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/
The version that is downloaded is a 14 day trial of the Premium version but you can disable that by clicking on Settings/Account Details where you'll see where to disable it.
Where in CCleaner does it give that info ?
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