[Essexboy]

OK that appears to rule out malware, so next we will work on a corrupt profile. To that end could you create a new admin user, log into that profile and then try to run a programme that you had a problem with in the main account

Do the following from Safe mode

Create a new account

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tried that, screens looked a bit different but could be because I'm on Windows 8.1 instead. I went to PC Settings > Accounts > Other accounts, which has an "Add new account" option, but it doesn't actually do anything, clicked on it, doesn't freeze or anything just nothing happens.

[daveski]

tried that, screens looked a bit different but could be because I'm on Windows 8.1 instead. I went to PC Settings > Accounts > Other accounts, which has an "Add new account" option, but it doesn't actually do anything, clicked on it, doesn't freeze or anything just nothing happens.

[Essexboy]

Is this from normal windows or safe mode

OK lets run SFC next, this will verify all MS files

http://www.eightforu...indows-8-a.html use option 2 on this page

[daveski]

from safe mode. will try SFC now.

[daveski]

i'm currently running SFC for a third time as the link says it may take that many times to properly fix everything. the first two times it's said that it identified issues but couldn't fix all of them. will see how that goes and will keep working through option 2 on the link.

while that runs, thought i'd mention that i rebooted to normal mode after the first run and my desktop was back, but i still can't do anything, can't run task manager, can't run admin cmd etc. another point that might be relevant, might not be, is that every time i've booted in safe mode i'd had a message pop up at the start and have blindly clicked through it thinking "oh, that'll just be cos I'm in safe mode". actually read it this time and it says:

"Windows created a temporary paging file on your computer because of a problem that occurred with your paging file configuration when you started your computer. The total paging file size for all disk drives may be somewhat larger than the size you specified."

if i then click OK, I get a Performance Options menu which says about Processor scheduling (lets me adjust for best performance of Programs or Background services) and Virtual memory, which says the total paging file size for all drives is 0MB. as i say, might just be cos I'm in safe mode, but thought I'd mention it.

[Essexboy]

OK that is some good info

Go to control panel > System and on the left select advanced system settings


Clicking that will bring up the advanced tab


In the performance box select Settings and a new box will open
Select change and a third box will open
Is there a tick in Automatically manage page size ?
If not then put one there
If there is then select custom size (remove the tick from automatically)
Use initially 700MB
OK out of this and try a reboot

[daveski]

did that, had Automatically manage page size ticked but everything beneath was empty, and No paging file was selected but greyed out, so did the custom setting of 700MB. rebooted in normal mode and it didn't make any difference, wasn't able to verify if the settings had stuck as I couldn't get past Advanced System Settings (presumably because it needs admin permissions).

rebooted in safe mode and got the same message on startup as before about creating a temporary paging file - checked the settings and it had remembered the 700MB I'd entered but on the Performance Options screen it was still showing 0MB. I then reticked Automatically manage page size, rebooted into safe mode again, same message on startup again and it'd gone back to everything being blank.

[Essexboy]

OK next step is to see if chkdsk can recover/repair the paging file

Run chkdsk as detailed on this page http://www.eightforu...indows-8-a.html

If this fails we may be looking at refreshing windows for which you will need the CD

[daveski]

Ran chkdsk \F (had to do it via cmd as it froze trying to do it via disk properties), ran through and doesn't seem to have made any difference, rebooted in normal mode, no change, and in safe mode still got the paging errors.

Ran just chkdsk after (I was trying to get the list of switches but did it wrong!) and this is what it returned:



Don't know if that's any use.

Edited by daveski, 23 March 2014 - 01:28 PM.

[Essexboy]

Yep it shows that you are having disc errors so lets see if we can cure them

From safe mode run an elevated command prompt and type in the following command

chkdsk /r

This should repair the errors, and as it appears to find problems in the jump list this may resolve the not able to find the path errors

[daveski]

did that, and it's been stuck on "Scanning and reparing drive (C:): 10% complete" for about the last hour. it looks like it's still thinking about it, but either this is the slowest scan of anything ever, or it's not working

[daveski]

left it scanning overnight and when I got up it was done!  booted in normal mode, didn't notice any difference.  booted into safe mode and reran chkdsk to see if it still identified those issues, went slightly different this time but not sure it's any better...

 

 

as it suggested I tried to run chkdsk /scan but that gave me an error. 

 

 

looked up how to do an offline scan and fix, which is apparently chkdsk /f, so kicked that off before I left for work - seemed a bit quicker but will see how it went when I get home.

[Essexboy]

Yes this looks like a corruption of the disc system.  I will wait to see the chkdsk results before proceeding  

[daveski]

chkdsk had finished when I got home, had booted to normal mode.  still nothing working correctly, although was getting a different error message when i tried to run an admin command prompt:

 

 

ran chkdsk from safe mode (where the admin command prompt worked absolutely fine, bit odd) and this was the result:

 

 

not looking good!

[Essexboy]

The path to that command prompt is wrong

Could you go to %windir%\system32\cmd.exe and double click that file, does command prompt open ?