[Tangram11]

Hi guys, thanks for reading.

 

I have had this Asus laptop for several years, running Windows 7 fine. I upgraded to Windows 10 a few months ago and it has been running well until about a week ago.

 

Something has changed that is causing it to run very slowly. The symptoms are odd e.g.:

• Takes a long time to boot.
• After boot, at the login screen it appears to be hung but if I type a password and wait a few minutes it appears that the keystrokes are stored in buffer, and then are suddenly released to the input box and login commences.
• After login, the mouse works fine but if I click on the Start menu, it will take 30 secs to show the start menu.
• When the start menu is displayed the mouse works fine and menu items highlight when I mouse over them, but if I click on one, it will take several minutes for it to see to register the request and then launch the app.
• When the app launches it launches slowly, e.g. Chrome starts and then very slowly the tabs start to appear.
• I am able to boot into Safe Mode and when I do that, the reponse rates are a bit better. After about 30 mins in Safe Mode, the response rate seems to improve but not 100%.

 

What I have done so far.

 

Booted into Safe Mode and run:

 

DISM:

C:\Users\Dad>dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.10586.0
Image Version: 10.0.10586.0
No component store corruption detected.
The operation completed successfully.

 

SFC:
C:\Users\Dad>sfc /scannow
Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.
Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

 

Antivirus:

I have run Avira rootkit scan and virus scan - no issues found.

 

Malware:

I have run Malware bytes - no issues found.

 

I have just run Speccy to produce some stats:
--- Speccy Link: http://speccy.pirifo...Lmdfzp3MXaMQF3W

 

I have previously tried to run an in-place upgrade/refresh of Windows 10 and received the following error: 0x8007025D - 0x2000C The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during APPLY_IMAGE operation   ... however this may have been an install image that was older than the one of the laptop, so I am going to refresh my USB media with the latest image and try again.

 

In the meantime, any other ideas?

 

 

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Best Answer

    Tangram11,

 

Speccy is flagging up a SMART warning about your HDD and shows that you are dangerously low on free storage space on partition 3 (D:) see my canned explanation below;

 

S.M.A.R.T

Status: 

Warning

 

 

 

 

Partition 3

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #3

Disk Letter: 

D:

File System: 

NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 

D2F9EDC2

Size: 

254 GB

Used Space: 

243 GB (95%)

Free Space: 

11.4 GB (5%)

 

 

 

Please note that in order to avoid data corruption and/or mechanical HDD failure for you must always have a minimum of 20 to 25% of the HDDs or partitions overall storage capacity available as free space where Windows is installed and between 10 and 15% of a HDDs overall storage capacity available as free space if there is data only on it, the free space allows for information to be copied to and from the drive efficiently particularily important for Windows file swapping and the installation of OS and AV updates.

Not having the above can render a computer inoperable if the HDD concerned has the OS on it due to the MBR (Master Boot Record) becoming damaged/corrupt, please see information here and here

 

 

 

Couple of things for you to do;

 

1: Test the HDD with CrystalDiskInfo 7.0.0 Standard Edition which you can download from here once done grab a screenshot (possibly two) of the results and attach to your next reply for us.

 

To capture and post a screenshot;

 

Click on the ALT key + PRT SCR key..its on the top row..right hand side..now click on start...all programs...accessories...paint....left click in the white area ...press CTRL + V...click on file...click on save...save it to your desktop...name it something related to the screen your capturing... BE SURE TO SAVE IT AS A .JPG ...otherwise it may be to big to upload... Click on the More Reply Options tab then after typing in any response you have... click on Choose File...desktop...find the screenshot..select it and click on Attach This File...on the lower left...after it says upload successful...click on add reply like you normally would.

 

Screenshot instructions are provided to assist those that may read this topic but are not yet aware of the “how to”.

 

 

2: Run Windows Management Instrumentation Command Line WMIC. To access this, simply open the command prompt and type wmic. Then type diskdrive get status and press Enter. Fingers crossed you will see a status message ‘OK’. If you don’t get an OK message, back up immediately! 

[phillpower2]

Best Answer

    Tangram11,

 

Speccy is flagging up a SMART warning about your HDD and shows that you are dangerously low on free storage space on partition 3 (D:) see my canned explanation below;

 

S.M.A.R.T

Status: 

Warning

 

 

 

 

Partition 3

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #3

Disk Letter: 

D:

File System: 

NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 

D2F9EDC2

Size: 

254 GB

Used Space: 

243 GB (95%)

Free Space: 

11.4 GB (5%)

 

 

 

Please note that in order to avoid data corruption and/or mechanical HDD failure for you must always have a minimum of 20 to 25% of the HDDs or partitions overall storage capacity available as free space where Windows is installed and between 10 and 15% of a HDDs overall storage capacity available as free space if there is data only on it, the free space allows for information to be copied to and from the drive efficiently particularily important for Windows file swapping and the installation of OS and AV updates.

Not having the above can render a computer inoperable if the HDD concerned has the OS on it due to the MBR (Master Boot Record) becoming damaged/corrupt, please see information here and here

 

 

 

Couple of things for you to do;

 

1: Test the HDD with CrystalDiskInfo 7.0.0 Standard Edition which you can download from here once done grab a screenshot (possibly two) of the results and attach to your next reply for us.

 

To capture and post a screenshot;

 

Click on the ALT key + PRT SCR key..its on the top row..right hand side..now click on start...all programs...accessories...paint....left click in the white area ...press CTRL + V...click on file...click on save...save it to your desktop...name it something related to the screen your capturing... BE SURE TO SAVE IT AS A .JPG ...otherwise it may be to big to upload... Click on the More Reply Options tab then after typing in any response you have... click on Choose File...desktop...find the screenshot..select it and click on Attach This File...on the lower left...after it says upload successful...click on add reply like you normally would.

 

Screenshot instructions are provided to assist those that may read this topic but are not yet aware of the “how to”.

 

 

2: Run Windows Management Instrumentation Command Line WMIC. To access this, simply open the command prompt and type wmic. Then type diskdrive get status and press Enter. Fingers crossed you will see a status message ‘OK’. If you don’t get an OK message, back up immediately! 

[Tangram11]

Thanks for replying and reviewing the Speccy log.

 

WMIC returned OK.

 

Attached is the screenshot from CrystalDiskInfo.

 

I have also cleared out about 40 GB of files on D:

 

The D drive is only a data partition used for Games and Steam.

 

Cheers.

Attached Thumbnails

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[phillpower2]

CrystalDisk is also detecting problems with the HDD so I suggest that you back up all important data asap, some info on the errors thrown up at the links below (please note that I am not suggesting that you use any product or service offered at the links, info only).

 

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Reallocated Sectors Count

 

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Current Pending Sector Count

 

S.M.A.R.T. Attribute: Uncorrectable Sector Count

 

Once your data is safely backed up (or before if you like) download a Windows 10 ISO in case your HDD does fail, see Brink tutorial here once each of these tasks has been done, run Seatools for Windows please don`t do this first as a stress test is included which can cause a flaky HDD to fail with the loss of all data on it.

 

error: 0x8007025D - 0x2000C The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during APPLY_IMAGE operation  

 

 

If the HDD does turn out to be ok and you have your data backed I would suggest that you do a clean install of Windows 10 but only after formatting the HDD first, full format it a couple of times to see if that clears the bad sectors.

 

You are welcome btw 

[Tangram11]

Interesting reading on the SMART errors. I am taking the laptop in tomorrow to have the hdd replaced with a new SSHD and get them to clone the existing drive before it fails.

 

I will let you know in about 24 hrs how it went and if it has made a difference.

[phillpower2]

The problem with cloning the HDD is that any problems that there may be with the present OS will be duplicated onto the new SSHD, you will be none the wiser if this happens, you are in the hands of the tech store now so it is immaterial but I personally would have tried a clean install of Windows 10 on the new SSHD first and then possibly considered cloning or creating a back up image of the present HDD, regardless, hope it goes well and thank you for keeping us posted    

[Tangram11]

Actually, that's what I want to do. i.e. Cloning it will rule out the hdd errors as the source of the problem. Besides, I'll get a newer, faster HDD :-)

 

If the problem still persists, I'd like to move on to the next round of troubleshooting such as getting a Windows 10 in-place refresh working without failing.

 

Eventually doing a fresh Win10 install is the last resort :-) Thanks for persisting with me.

[phillpower2]

You have more patience than me Tangram11 

 

All we can do for now is wait on the results of the clone, lets hope all is well when it is done.

 

You are most welcome btw 

[Tangram11]

The laptop has been returned with a new 1TB SSHD and performance has returned to normal.

 

The cloning process was effective and all programs, data, and settings have been retained.

 

Phillpower, I'd just like to say thanks for pointing me in the right direction with CrystalDiskInfo. Despite my assumptions that it was some sort of operating system issue, it looks like the root cause was a mechanical problem.

 

Time to close this one out.

 

Cheers.

[phillpower2]

You are most welcome Tangram11   glad to hear that all is now well and thank you for the follow up