Messages

26

General Computer Support / Re: Restore points, Firefox history and extensions all lost

« on: May 12, 2016, 05:15:31 am »

Ok, I don't tend to use Windows defrag utility, as good as it is, as it takes seemingly forever to run!  Hence the use of various 3rd party defraggers. Looking into it though it does seem as though losing restore points is a fairly common occurrence after defragging, even with the Windows one  and I have lost loads along the way, just never realised in my ignorance that it was tied to defragging the HD.

Anyways I'll try the other stuff later on this eve...

Don't know if there's a glitch with the site Boggin but I received 3 email notifications within 1 minute after your last reply! 

27

General Computer Support / Re: Restore points, Firefox history and extensions all lost

« on: May 12, 2016, 02:59:38 am »

Thanks for the reply Boggin.

Well I went a bit mad and used several defraggers to compare as my system was grinding a bit, and they all seem to show different levels of defragmentation, and some show % to defrag even after being defragged by others, so I'm not sure which is the best or most accurate way to optimally defrag a HD and haven't had chance to look into it yet.

The ones I remember using were Sysinternals Power Defragmanter, IOBit Smart Defrag, Glary Utilities defrag and Wise 365 defrag. I may have used a couple of others, Auslogics, WinUtilities and another, just to check levels rather than actually defragging. I did it all in safe mode with no network to speed things up as there's much less running and placing demand on the CPU, would that have made a difference?

I wasn't aware that defragging could remove restore points or I might have been more careful, but the levels were significant and the disk did seem like it needed it and is running a bit smoother now, so is there any way of protecting against this? Would a reg backup do the trick in the absence of a restore point? I do have several of these but aren't sure what this will affect...

Is the browser issue related then, and is there any way to find or restore my bookmarks, history, session, extensions, tabs, url's etc? I've never used the sync option or set up an account, so everything will be under the Default profile I'm guessing, I'm hoping it's recoverable... 

I'm at work all day so won't get chance to check the VSS or do an SFC/ FCFix until this evening so will update after that...

28

General Computer Support / SOLVED: Restore points, Firefox history and extensions all lost

« on: May 11, 2016, 02:21:51 pm »

Hi all,
After doing a defrag and cleanup in safe mode and going back into normal on my W7 SP1 x64 desktop I found my Firefox had "refreshed" itself to a cleanly installed version, with no bookmarks, history (which I normally never delete), and none of the several extensions I'd installed - one of which was Session Manager which I now can't use to restore my previous tabs, along with no history. Also any of the commonly used url's I type in which used to pop up now don't show as recognised and have to be typed in in full.

I haven't cleaned anything up to cause this (that I know of), and unfortunately I don't appear to have any restore points present now either so I can't revert that way, and there were at least a couple last time I looked  I don't know if these issues are related but I suspect they might be  - I have tried to create a restore point to see if it's working, and even though it's turned on it failed to create one - does anyone have any ideas on either restoring my browser features etc or the restore point issue??
Thanks

29

General Computer Support / Re: windows search missing from windows features

« on: September 26, 2015, 09:26:05 am »

You should be able to type "indexing" in the Search box which you get when you press the Windows Start orb (in W7) or equivalent depending on your OS version. "Indexing options" should be the first item that appears (at least it is on mine!) - you can also access it via the Control Panel, then you can try the solution Boggin proposed...

Did you check if the RPC service was running as well?

30

General Computer Support / Re: would someone please teach this hacker a lesson?

« on: September 25, 2015, 06:16:43 pm »

Hmm, yeah I have noticed that, but I didn't like to say anything....   

31

General Computer Support / Re: windows search missing from windows features

« on: September 25, 2015, 06:15:31 pm »

By 'enabled' do you mean it's set to automatic (the default setting) or manual?

If it won't run when you press start it should throw up an error message - is this the case, and if so what error?

Also try checking the RPC (remote procedure call) service (should be set to Automatic and running) as the Search service is dependent on the RPC service to run...

32

General Computer Support / Re: windows search missing from windows features

« on: September 25, 2015, 10:45:21 am »

Have you tried checking to see if the "Windows Search" (WSearch) service is disabled or running in Services? (can be found in Task Manager, depends which version of Windows you're running...)

33

General Computer Support / Re: would someone please teach this hacker a lesson?

« on: September 25, 2015, 07:58:44 am »

No, I was reluctant to click it myself, hence my ignorance! Thought I might be missing out on some sort of 'in-joke' !! 

34

General Computer Support / Re: would someone please teach this hacker a lesson?

« on: September 25, 2015, 04:11:16 am »

? is it just me wondering what this thread is all about??! 

35

General Computer Support / Re: I have a Shift/Print Screen capture Question

« on: September 24, 2015, 01:39:04 am »

Hi, on my desktop ALT + Print Screen just copies the active window, whichever program is in the foreground (active), while Shift (or Ctrl) + Print Screen copies the whole of the visible window on screen. Hope this helps...

36

General Computer Support / Re: reparse

« on: August 25, 2015, 04:27:05 am »

Hi Max, may be a daft question but have you clicked the "Repair Reparse Points" button on the bottom left of the Pre-Scan box? Just doing the scan won't actually repair anything....

37

General Computer Support / Re: (Solved) Problems with Lenovo bloatware

« on: August 19, 2015, 04:25:17 pm »

Yes, I've had this same thing on my W 8.1 machine when running SFCFix, which I believe calls that dism command, and it sat on 20% for an absolute AGE , but then to my surprise (just before I was about to kill it in task manager!) it did eventually finish and got through the other 80% considerably faster than the first 20!
Weird...

38

General Computer Support / Re: System File Check For Windows 10

« on: August 16, 2015, 04:00:09 am »

Hi Roy,

Can't help you with the troublesome updates unfortunately, as I have more than enough problems of my own when it comes to updating both my W7 and W8.1 machines and have had similar problems myself, but the sfc command Definitely has a gap between the \ and the / - I've used it often enough!

I'm sure Boggin will come back to you on the updates....

39

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot [Solved]

« on: August 01, 2015, 07:58:57 am »

Yep, wasn't that clear - it's all from the command prompt in the repair environment, using the cd (change directory) command, and others.

Some basic use of the old dos commands is required, fortunately I still remember most of it!  probably best attempted only if you're familiar or comfortable with dos and command prompts, if the syntax isn't 100% on the mark the commands won't work...

40

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot [Solved]

« on: August 01, 2015, 05:34:11 am »

For us not so savvy (including me) how did you copy the System Hive and where is the regback to be found ?

Fairly simple really, but can't be done from within Windows as the registry files are all in use and can't be accessed, so has to done from the RE, either the machine's own or a recovery or installation disk.

(1.) Open the command prompt, and (2.) navigate to the OS drive (C: etc, check with DISKPART, list volume if not sure), then (3.) to the Windows\System32\config folder. (4.) Rename (ren) the SYSTEM file to SYSTEM.old or .bak or similar to create a backup. (5.) Navigate to the regback folder (cd regback) - this works in both W7 and W8.1, not sure about older (or newer!) OS.. (6.) Type dir SYSTEM - a file should be displayed with the machine's registry backup of the SYSTEM file with a date stamp and size - this will give an indication of when the registry was last backed up by the machine, unfortunately I don't know how often this happens or whether it will always work, but mine was less than a week old and newer than my Tweaking Registry backup so I went for it!  (7.) Finally type "copy SYSTEM c:\windows\system32\config" without the quotes, and with your OS drive if not C:, and your OS folder if not Windows, and this will copy the backup into the config folder. Exit out of the command prompt and restart the machine and if all's gone well it boots up again!

I have used this method before, but I guess it depends how old or compatible the registry hive backup is, and I don't know how to force a hive backup, so an alternative is to use Shane's Tweaking Reg Backup and navigate to the relevant folder there and use the dos_restore command to backup the whole registry from the batch file there - that was my next option had the fix above not worked.

Hope that's all clear...

41

Everything Else / Windows 10 anyone??

« on: August 01, 2015, 04:18:28 am »

Hi all,

Just trying to get some general feedback/opinion on whether it's worth upgrading to W10. I have a W7 desktop and a W8.1 laptop, and have always preferred W7, so much so that I have tweaked my laptop to be more 7 than 8, turning off the apps view and adding classic menu, etc - maybe I'm just an old fart! 

Anyway I haven't read up much on W10 yet, but plan to, and would appreciate any opinions from any W10 users on here, as I've seen one or two comments on the Help threads and would like to know more about what differences it has to 7/8.1 and whether it would be worth upgrading or not. If I was going to upgrade either machine it'd most likely be the laptop as the desktop has a failing disk so will just run that until it either dies or I get a new one to replace it, and then decide whether it would be worth going from 7 to 10. 

Look forward to your replies, cheers. 

42

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot [Solved]

« on: August 01, 2015, 03:39:46 am »

Err, thanks Rick, but fortunately divine intervention wasn't required, this time at least!   

I managed to solve it by myself, but thanks for the inputs anyway, appreciate all the help I've had on here 

Just for info, I ran the SFC scan and it turned up some corruption that it couldn't repair, so I guess that's still outstanding and will need a look at now I'm running again, but didn't allow the machine to boot. I went all the way through a bcd rebuild from one of your links Boggin, and even though it completed successfully and did something on a hidden small partition of my disk that I knew nothing about, it still wouldn't allow the machine to boot. Also re-tried the full chkdsk /r and system restore (Again!) out of desperation, all with no effect. 

Just before I was about to try one of Shane's full registry backups I decided to just copy the SYSTEM hive from the machine's own regback, which was more recent than my full tweaking backup, and voila, it's only done the trick!!  So now I'm back running again, only I've still no idea what the hell happened to not allow my boot record to be read and my machine not to turn on (any ideas anyone??), but it underlines the importance of doing (frequent!) registry backups to me, as I've used this method several times on both my machines to get non-running systems back on the go again, so all good for now!

Now to update and check/scan everything and then do some more backups... 

43

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot

« on: July 29, 2015, 12:04:20 pm »

Yes I've tried Startup Repair but it didn't fix anything (that I could tell!), and it does a disk check of it's own (/f I believe), in addition to the 2 /r that I've also done, and all have come up clean.

I have done an SFC as well, which I think said it found some errors but couldn't fix all of them, can't remember now - I'll run it again after the Startup repair has tried (again) to fix any problems and let you know...

44

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot

« on: July 29, 2015, 06:11:48 am »

Thanks. No dump files present in that directory, did a search for any .dmp files anywhere on the OS drive (C:) and there's plenty, but mainly all related to crashes of various programs on the machine, and none from the date of the error - it didn't even "crash" as such, just wouldn't boot back into Windows normal mode after being in safe mode!

One of those repairs did manage to get the laptop into safe mode, but it still wouldn't boot into Windows and went into the same repair loop which couldn't so I'm back into the RE advanced options normal mode again. Also tried another full chkdsk /r, still with no errors, and a different restore point which also wouldn't restore...

Still at a loss - I'm guessing the Refresh PC option or changing any of the registry hives aren't going to make any difference if it won't boot into Windows??

45

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot

« on: July 29, 2015, 02:48:02 am »

Okay, to update - tried reconfiguring the MBR with one of those links but that didn't have any noticeable effect.

Tried to reboot into safe mode to do something related to the "Third Party ATA Miniport Driver" (although I've no idea what this is or why it should have changed!) but it wouldn't recognize the "shutdown" command  - 'not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file'; this command is also needed in the section about "Switching the BIOS from AHCI to IDE mode", so I couldn't do that either! Although I did go into the Advanced options UEFI settings (is this the same as the old BIOS settings in W7??), but I couldn't find a switch anywhere that mentioned 'SATA Emulation' or any options to change from AHCI to IDE, so I'm at a complete loss at the moment!

Also I was going to copy the crash dump file onto my USB to analyze it on my desktop, but I'm not sure which file to copy or the location - can anyone help me on this one or any of the others above? Thanks

46

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot

« on: July 28, 2015, 04:47:00 pm »

Nope, not even safe mode  - forgot to mention I'd tried that as well from the advanced options.

Thanks. Okay, I'll dig my flash drive out and copy the dump file to my desktop and analyze it there, and also have a read of those links as well and see if that leads anywhere promising, get back tomorrow as it's late here.... 

47

General Computer Support / Re: Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot

« on: July 28, 2015, 12:20:43 pm »

Ok, thanks Shane - I've downloaded it on my (still working!) Dell desktop, but isn't it a Windows program?   

At the moment I can only access the RE Advanced options (inc. command prompt) on my laptop, so would have to run it from the DOS command line via a USB, if that's possible....   

48

General Computer Support / Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot [Solved]

« on: July 28, 2015, 04:03:24 am »

Hi peeps, okay so now it's my 8.1 laptop that's playing up, only this one has a boot problem rather than an update problem 

It's a 64 bit Toshiba Satellite C50D and after being in safe mode the other day (doing nothing special to alter anything that I'm aware of) and trying to go back into normal mode it gave me the blue screen with message and an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error which it tried to repair, then went into Automatic Repair mode but couldn't fix anything. I've tried Restarting with no effect, then been into Advanced options and tried System Restore, but that wouldn't work, and also done a full chkdsk /r from the command prompt option which reported no problems (the HDD has always been fine on this machine so far!)

From a bit of googling I've tried the rebuild bcd command repair which had no effect, but I may not have done it all as the directories on my OS didn't correspond with the ones on the instructions. Does anyone have any ideas on this one please as my machine is unusable at the moment.... 

49

General Computer Support / Re: anyone tried this ?

« on: July 10, 2015, 04:16:58 am »

Throws up a WOT (Web of Trust) red Malware warning when I open it......  

50

General Computer Support / Re: Windows Activation/Update error 80070424 with KB971033

« on: June 28, 2015, 02:15:45 pm »

Cheers Shane, it's all backed up already as I'm aware of the disk problems - I could hardly not be!  I've had intermittent problems with it ever since I got it over 3 years ago, but as it was cheap and a decent spec machine (at the time) I've put up with it's occasional fall-overs and other issues, mainly updating problems and BSOD's now and again. And the 4kb of bad sectors has been there as well, and not got any worse, so while I know disk problems tend to get worse with time, this one seems to be holding it's own and hasn't got any worse (or better...) since I've had it. Replacing the disk isn't an option right now, unfortunately, but is definitely on my shopping list as a nice to have! 

What do you mean by overheating Boggin? I've installed the CPUID on both my machines, and the W8 laptop shows a lot more data than my W7 desktop! And do you mean the CPU or the HDD? I'm not sure what the normal parameters are on either, but for your info the Intel Celeron 450 Core is showing Min 73C Max 83C and the WDC Assembly Min 42C Max 43C. The corresponding temps on my laptop are 39-42C for AMD and 29-31C for the Toshiba Assembly, so in comparison the Dell does look to be running a bit hot, but I've never monitored them before or know what their normal operating ranges are supposed to be......