OT: Windows bootup message

My elderly mother's Windows 7 machine has started booting up into some kind of diagnostics program - it displays a square box in the middle of the screen with three buttons marked "Memory Test", "Disk Test" and "Exit". If you tab to "Exit" and press "Return", it then goes on to boot Windows.

Does anyone have any idea where this nonsense is coming from and how she makes it stop?

Reply to
Huge
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Have you actually allowed it to run the tests?

Is it an HP machine?

Reply to
polygonum

Sounds like the O/S has detected some sort of corruption in the hard drive's filesystem and is giving the user the opportunity to fix it. The fact that it continues to exhibit this behaviour from boot to boot, though, indicates some sort of corruption in the O/S itself, AFAICS. A bare metal reinstall from scratch will certainly sort the problem but comes at a cost of reconfiguring all her apps and settings. Maybe someone more Windows orientated can suggest a less drastic option?

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Does it do anything else before displaying the square box? For instance, does it display a message like "Windows has detected (insert harbinger of Windows doom of your choice here) before jumping into square box mode?

Nick

Reply to
Nick Odell

Well first thing is to run the tests. Normally if its ram it can be that it will give an option to soak test or just run the test a number of times. If ram is showing up faults it might be time to replace the offending stick in the machine. Far more likely is that there is an ntfs file error and running the disc test with fix file errors will usually sort it. These issues can occur due to a crash while running or a power down due to a power cut etc. Some of the hp machines, thoughothers may do this as well, have a bit of extra software in their bios that can detect some errors and helpfully suggest tests.

I doubt if its a case where a complete reinstall is needed unless you are very unlucky. It might also be wise to check plugs and sockets from the mains, and internally too, as these can be the culprit of crashes or power downs of the hard drive.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

If there's some flavour of malware been installed then running the 'tests' might be exactly the wrong thing to do.

Reply to
F

A (very!) long shot, but is there a CD or DVD in the drive?

Reply to
F

No.

No.

Bear in mind that the machine is 2000 miles away and being operated by my 82 y/o mother.

Reply to
Huge

I don't think so, but I'll get her to check.

Reply to
Huge

Don't know. Sorry.

Reply to
Huge

It is probably grizzling about some potential fault it has detected. I don't recognise that screen but perhaps it requires the right sort of fault before you see it. Get her to send a screenshot of it to you and then at least you can look to see what phrases appear on it.

It might be as well to cut a CD bootable malware scanning disk and a ram tester CD/DVD to send to her and do independent tests.

Reply to
Martin Brown

No can do. It isn't running Windows when it does this. Or at least, I don't think it is. When you select "Exit", it goes straight to the "Starting Windows" screen.

I've done the latter already when I was there. Ran 2 full Memtest86 runs (which take many hours each) without error.

Reply to
Huge

As "F" mentions - running the "test" could be a bad thing. This is one of those faults that you really need to eyeball - got long stalks on yer eyes?

Reply to
snot

And bear in mind that we are getting it third hand from you. :)

Reply to
GB

Like run an anti-virus program and if it persists then run the disk test and the memory test.

Reply to
bert

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