Slightly past midnight yesterday (well... today), July 12, I was randomly browsing YouTube when I got a blue screen. Unusual, because my laptop has virtually zero problems the two years I've had it. I've eliminated the possibilities that it may have overheated or reacted to something bad I may have downloaded; I only had a YouTube video playing in Google Chrome with a Minecraft window minimized (not exactly anything I'd call "intensive" activity), and I haven't downloaded or installed anything recently. Following the instructions the blue screen gave me, I restarted my laptop, only to have it get stuck at the beginning of booting up (forgot which step, but probably something to do with the cache). Despite it telling me not to interrupt the process, I restarted after nothing more had happened after ten minutes... not the best idea.
My guess is that by interrupting that process, I've screwed something up badly. Trying to boot up my laptop, I get told this.
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology - Option ROM - 11.0.0.1339
Copyright© 2003-11 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
The operating system did not shutdown cleanly.
Reconstructing Cache Metadata.
Please do not interrupt this process.
Reading Packed Metadata into memory...
Failed to read packed metadata!
Press <ESC> to continue.
There was an error initializing cache. Proceeding without it.
Press <ESC> to continue.
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology - Option ROM - 11.0.0.1339
Copyright© 2003-11 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Raid Volumes: * = Accelerated Disk/Volume
ID Name Level Strip Size Status Bootable
1 Volume_0000 RAID0(Cache) 128KB 59.6GB Disabled No
Physical Devices:
ID Device Model Serial # Size Type/Status (Vol ID)
*1 ST750LX003-1AC15 W2001MYK 698.6GB Disabled
4 M4-CT064M4SSD3 000012200347C 59.6GB Cache Disk(1)
Press <CTRL-I> to enter Configuration Utility...........
My laptop now gives me the following error, appearing before I can even get to the "Starting Windows" screen (I'm currently on "Windows 7 Professional")...
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
This Product is covered by one or more of the following patents:
US5,307,459, US5,434,872, US5,732,094, US6,570,884, US6,115,776 and
US6,327,625
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Series v2.47 (04/20/12)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.
Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key
At this point I find that there's nothing I can do, and so I have no choice but to turn off and back on my laptop. I've found that I can get past this by going into the "F2 Setup" after the first error screen and change the "SATA Mode" to "AHCI Mode" instead of "RAID Mode", which is what it's always been set on, as far as I'm aware. Restarting my computer on this new setting, neither of the two above error messages appears, and I get sent to the "Windows Error Recovery" screen.
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the
cause.
If Windows files have been damaged or configured incorrectly, Startup Repair
can help diagnose and fix the problem. If the power was interrupted during
startup, choose Start Windows Normally.
(Use the arrows keys to highlight your choice.)
Launch Startup Repair (recommended)
Start Windows Normally
Even after trying both, I've been unable to solve anything. "Startup Repair" says it "cannot repair this computer automatically", and starting Windows normally only gets me three seconds into the "Starting Windows" screen before freezing, giving me another blue screen, and promptly restarting. After disabling this automatic restarting, I've been able to view the blue screen for long enough to see that this is what it says.
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage
to your computer.
If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow
these steps:
Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed
hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive
to make sure it is properly configured and terminated.
Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then
restart your computer.
Technical information:
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A97E8, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000,0
x0000000000000000)
Running Windows in Safe Mode gets me to the same blue screen, but only after failing when "Loading Windows Files". It goes through all of them before stopping at "\Windows\system32\drivers\CLASSPNP.SYS". Among the other "Advanced Boot Options", I've tried "Last Known Good Configuration (advanced)" as well, as it was somewhat successful when I had a problem on my old computer. However, it again freezes when "Starting Windows" and automatically resets. Lastly, I've tried the "Repair Your Computer" option. As stated, "Startup Repair" couldn't fix my problems, "System Restore" says it's unable to restore itself to the point right before I got my first blue screen, and in the "Command Prompt", I haven't gotten many results from using "chkdsk" or "bootrec.exe", as I've read about online. There are a few other fixes I've attempted, but none have worked.
Anyone know what to do? If any other information is needed to further assess my situation, I'll gladly post it here. All help would be greatly appreciated; thanks in advance.