My hardware: Dell Inspiron N5110 with Core i5-2450M processor, 500GB HDD, 6GB RAM
Came with Windows 7 Home premium 64-bit, progressively updated by me to Windows 8 Pro > Windows 8.1 Pro > Windows 10 Pro (10240) > Windows 10 Pro (10586). Till end April, everything was running fine. It was my mistake that I didn't create a Recovery Drive at that time.
Possibly due to some wrong installation/uninstallation of a software (cannot recollect), Windows 10 booting to logon screen started taking about 100 minutes (due to the process trying 20 times to get some access at every 5 minute interval giving error code 7023). But after log in, everything seemed to work normally. Tried different suggestions from Tenforum which asked me to create local a/c with Administrator powers and Microsoft a/c likewise for logging in with those a/c to see the result - didn't work. Then got a lead from a member at answers.microsoft.com to Windows Repair and that solved the problem whatever it was.
BMay be due to cleaning up some "junk" subsequently, a few Start Bar icons, particularly Start button stopped responding to both left click and right click. The Date and Time had also changed but same could not be modified. Right click opened the menu all right but the item for changing date & time would not respond. Win+X was non-responsive and had to run control, msconfig etc. through Win+R to get to different administrative functions. System and Security on Control Panel did not display Windows Update. Under C:\users, I found some new user names with access to different files/folders and for same files, the creation/modification dates were different for different users. Though I was listed as user with Administrator powers, when I tried to open command prompt, the prompt showed c:\users\one of the new users> and not me. I do not know if there was a mix up in Inheritance settings.
Check for malware through Windows Defender, MBAM and Emsisoft Emergency Kit did not show any virus.
I tried Windows Repair again, scrupulously following all the steps, but the repair screen remained unchanged even after 4 hours and I cancelled the repairs in absence of any indication about repair progress.
A Dell diagnostic check for about 15 items like HDD, RAM, Windows path, and so on so forth gave a clean chit. But I cannot start Windows in Safe Mode as I am unable to get such option at start up. If I just allow the pc to run, a blue screen comes with message that something went wrong and pc needs restart which it did on its own to end up again at the same screen. There was also a message about WDF violation - I don't know what it is.
What to do now? I have a Windows 10 .iso disk created when I installed it (so missing all subsequent updates but those can be reinstalled if Windows comes on line). My son has a Sony VAIO laptop with same Windows version and same Intel Processor. Will a USB Recovery Drive created there work on my pc? I have your Windows Repair on a pen drive - can it be used from there?
I am aware that I made a very bad mess but if repair is possible saving my files/folders (also on C: drive), it would be great. I don't mind losing all applications on my pc.
Btw, in some other post on this forum, I asked if there is any way to know the progress of repair when running Windows Repair.
