Using Windows 7 Hardware Troubleshooting Tools : Troubleshooting with Event Viewer, Troubleshooting Startup Failures with Startup Repair

1. Troubleshooting with Event Viewer

To open Event Viewer and view hardware-related events, follow these steps:

Once you perform these steps, Event Viewer appears with only critical events and errors displayed, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Event Viewer

Browse through this filtered list of events. In particular, pay close attention to events with a source related to the hardware component that is experiencing problems. For example, if you are experiencing disk errors, look for errors related to the system disk. If any such events are written, they could be crucial in helping you diagnose the issue in question.

2. Troubleshooting Startup Failures with Startup Repair

A physically malfunctioning disk, motherboard, or RAM module can prevent a system from starting, but so can a faulty disk configuration. If you need to troubleshoot a system that does not start, you first need to rule out software configuration or data corruption errors on the disks as the cause.

Startup Repair automatically detects and fixes many hard disk errors that prevent Windows from starting. Startup Repair begins by analyzing boot sectors, the boot manager, disk configuration, disk integrity, boot configuration data (BCD) registry file integrity, system file integrity, boot logs, and event logs. Then, it attempts to solve any problems it has found. This repair process can involve repairing configuration files, solving simple disk problems, replacing missing system files, or running System Restore to return the computer to an earlier state. Because Startup Repair performs these tasks automatically, you can solve startup problems much faster by using this tool than you would otherwise if you had to perform this analysis and repair manually.

Startup Repair helps you diagnose hardware failures precisely because it repairs common software configuration errors found on boot disks (typically hard disks). If Startup Repair fails to fix a Windows startup problem, you can normally remove disk configuration from the list of potential sources of the error you want to resolve. You can then turn your attention to other possible causes, such as a third-party disk partitioning utilities, physical disk problems, physical drive problems, an incorrectly configured basic input/output system (BIOS), faulty memory, or a faulty motherboard.

Launching the Startup Repair Tool

You access Startup Repair through the Windows Recovery Environment and its associated System Recovery Options, which are installed automatically on the boot disk by the Windows 7 Setup program. The Windows Recovery Environment is a light operating system that you can use to fix Windows problems offline. To open the Windows Recovery Environment, press F8 as your computer starts to open the Advanced Boot Options menu. Then, choose the Repair Your Computer option, as shown in Figure 2.

If the startup problem that you are diagnosing prevents you from accessing the Advanced Boot Options menu, you can access the Windows Recovery Environment and System Recovery Options by booting from the Windows 7 DVD. With this latter method, the Install Windows wizard opens. Then, select your language, click Next, and choose the Repair Your Computer option on the second page of the Install Windows wizard, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 2. Opening the Windows Recovery Environment from the Advanced Boot Options menu

Figure 3. Opening the Windows Recovery Environment through the Windows 7 DVD

Either method of starting the Windows Recovery Environment opens the first page of the System Recovery Options wizard, one version of which is shown in Figure 4. This particular version of the first page appears when you boot from the Windows 7 DVD. If instead you have chosen Repair Your Computer through the Advanced Boot Options menu, you are asked to specify a language, and then, on a second page, you are prompted to provide local user credentials.

Figure 4. Opening System Recovery Options

The last page of the System Recovery Options wizard is the main page and is common to all versions: the Choose A Recovery Tool page. To launch the Startup Repair tool, choose that option on the page, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Choosing the Startup Repair recovery tool

Figure 6 shows the Startup Repair tool running. During this period, it runs the following tests:

• Check for updates

• System disk test

• Disk failure diagnosis

• Disk metadata test

• Target OS test

• Volume content check

• Boot manager diagnosis

• System boot log diagnosis

• Event log diagnosis

• Internal state check

• Boot status test

Figure 6. The Startup Repair tool

After it runs the tests and repairs the disk, Startup Repair displays a diagnosis of the startup error.

If Startup Repair finds no errors, you can turn to troubleshoot other system components, such as the physical memory or the physical disk.