CHKDISK Halting at 28% During Startup

[Steel430]

I've got an old HP laptop (running XP) I use if the ASUS gives me trouble, so I either post from that or my phone.

If I can get back to the command screen, I'll give what you wrote a shot. Now it's taking me to the login screen, but either I can't log in because:

1. The login isn't accepting anything I type in that it stays blank some of the time. The mouse arrow moves around but when I click in the login box, it changes to the typing icon but that's it.

2. It accepts the password (sometimes it takes a couple minutes for each of the password dots to show up as the password gets typed out), looks like it's about to take me to the main screen but kicks me back to the Windows 8 prelogin screen with the graphic of Seattle. Normally it includes the time and an option to restart/shutdown/etc., but none of these options are showing up now, it's just the Seattle graphic.

One other thing I noticed - if I keep the laptop plugged, that's when it will make its way to the login screen, even if I restart it by taking out the battery. If I unplug it and take out the battery & turn it on, that's when it goes into the "diagnosing the PC" mode, so I might be able to give your advice a shot.

BTW, if this post has exceeded the scope of the original topic, I can start up a new one in the other forum. Didn't want to derail the original thread if this doesn't apply.

UPDATE: Success in that I was able to open the Command Prompt, typed in what you said and the current status is: "Verifying files: Stage 1 of 5). 1 percent complete. (50177 of 411904 file records processed).

Looks like this'll take a bit so I'll post again with the results.

[Boggin]

That's okay - you can continue in this thread for continuity.

You can also get to the Event Viewer from the cmd prompt by entering eventvwr to see if any drivers are having problems.

[Steel430]

Ok. I'll try it if it can get to that point. It's been holding at Stage 2 of 5 for the past 5 hours saying 11 percent complete, 411913 of 539966 index entries processed. The cursor is still blinking and I can move it around so it hasn't frozen up.

Any advice if it stays at that number? Not sure if I should close the command prompt and try again.

Stage 1 was completed with all files verified and 0 bad file records processed.

[Boggin]

I think I once read that someone waited about 3 days for a chkdsk /r to complete.

It's obvious that your HDD has taken a nose dive since running HDSentinel so chkdsk will have that much more work to do.

Do you have much personal stuff on that computer ?

Given the state of the HDD's degradation, I'm not sure if you will be able to use Linux to recover some of those files.

https://www.winhelp.us/recover-files-using-puppy-linux.html

When the HDD fails completely you would have to reinstall the OS onto a new HDD and while you can create Win 8/8.1 install disks, you would be dependent upon Microsoft activating it for you, or you could contact ASUS for a set of recovery disks which would take your computer back to out of the box.

Did you not upgrade to Win 8.1 from 8.0 ?

[Steel430]

Yeah, at this point I'd agree on the 3 days part. But it did move on to Stage 4 of 5 and there's 9 messages about Windows replacing bad clusters. It's at 290592 of 411888.

And yes, there's a bunch of personal stuff on there. I have backups but not of a few new folders, so hopefully this'll be enough of a fix I can do that.

I didn't upgrade to Windows 8.1 since at the time I was hearing enough about how it wasn't exactly a "fix" and 8 was running fine enough for me so didn't see the need to.

I'll look into Puppy Linux a bit more. I was hoping to just be able to put the drive in a external shell and copy some of the files over with a USB line.

UPDATE:

It's done with the check. It says 243 bad clusters were added to the Bad Clusters File. Windows has made corrections to the file system. No further action is required. Failed to transfer logged messages to the event  log with status 50.

I was able to enter the commands like you said and it booted to Safe Mode so I can grab my files. Also downloaded the Bluescreen file onto a USB and will transfer it over to my laptop to see what it says.

FURTHER UPDATE:

I ran the Bluescreen program and it came back to two readings. I'd post the screenshots but figure it was moot since I ran HDSentinel right after and it said the HD health was at 0% and to backup immediately.

At least I was able to grab the newer folders I hadn't backed up yet.

[Boggin]

Sounds like you've managed a decent salvage of your files - hope they haven't been corrupted.

[Steel430]

I can open some of them fine on the laptop so doesn't look like it. Thanks again for all your help!

[Boggin]

Good luck with getting a replacement HDD and getting it back up and running.