explorer.exe unknown hard error - windows 8.1

[shawie60]

Hi guys I have an lenovo 8.1 machine, 12Gb ram 2 Tb HD and tonight I ran a virus scan and cleaned 3 items.
When i rebooted I got a explorer.exe - system warning  - unknown hard error when it loaded windows.
The desktop appears but takes ages for the icons etc to appear. Unfortunately I cant run anything. I can open windows etc but if I try to run a program (with/without admin privlages etc) they wont run.  I get a message saying program not ready.
So I cant run chkdsk, sfc, regedit (I used your simple system tweaker earlier and made a registry backup) or system restore. Ive tried to run portable tools but they wont run either. I also made a manual backup of the registry which i tried to reinstall but that didn't work either .. 
Any idea's ??
glenn

[Boggin]

Can you boot up into the advanced boot options and Safe Mode with Networking to run the repair program ?

With not knowing when you became infected, your restore points may be of no help even if the infection didn't delete them - but from the advanced boot options you could try the restore points.

[shawie60]

Hi thanks for the reply, no sorry the charms etc wont work nor will the menu bar. Ive got a msdart disk that allowed me access to certain things but the restore points weren't there. ran a sfc and that came up good. Decided to restore from an image which worked. That said it took approx 10 hours which cant be normal ! I'll start checking the hardware today. Is there a way to integrate the tools found on your website (which have helped no end of time) onto a bootable cd image?
many thanks
glenn

[Boggin]

The image probably took that long because of the damage the infection did, but also could have been dependent upon how much you have on your machine.

Being able to restore from an ext. image is always a good fall back and is essential as a counter to Ransomware or other infections.

Because there are free and paid for programs I don't think it would be practical trying to bundle them together.

One disk I would advise creating though, is a Kaspersky Recue Disk.

https://support.kaspersky.co.uk/4162

This disk pulled me out of the mire once when using a restore point hung on a black screen and after I power shut down, that was the only thing it would boot up with.

It took about 9 hours to scan my system and then invoked a chkdsk which got me up and running again.

It's worth going into the BIOS and changing the Boot order so that it checks the DVD and USB drives before the SSD/HDD.

I've never heard of a MSDart disk.

I normally use an install or System Repair disk.

You can create a Win 8.1 install disk from https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows8

When you boot up with an install disk, you proceed as for a clean install but click on Repair your computer on the Install screen and from there you can navigate to the advanced boot options.