Help - Windows 7 problem caused by Windows 10

[Kerr Avon]

I have a desktop PC running Windows 7, and no other OS, and it was working fine. And since I was going to go down to a friend's house to fix his non-booting Windows 10 PC, I copied Windows 10 from disc to a USB stick (via Rufus, a bootable USB stick creator program), and to test the Windows 10 USB stick was working, I booted up my Windows 7 desktop via the USB stick, got to the Windows 10 menu, and turned off the Windows 7 desktop. I did this because I thought that the Windows 10 installation USB wouldn't actually change anything on the PC until I told it to (which I wasn't going to do, of course, I just wanted to test that the USB stick booted).

 

Anyway, the Windows 7 PC still works fine, i.e. online works, no viruses or malware, every program I've tried works, but whenever I boot it up, the Windows 7 PC ALWAYS runs CHKDSK at boot, then it tells me that CHKDSK can't check the C: drive, and tells me it's because of some previously installed software, and that I should use the system restore to go back to before the software was installed. You'd think it would tell me what software is actually causing the problem, just like you'd expect the Windows 10 disk to have NOT altered the contents on the hard drive, given that I did not tell it to do anything at all, but not.

 

Oh, and all of my restore points have been removed.

 

Googling the problem shows that it's not exactly uncommon, but mostly it's people who dual boot both Windows 7 and Windows 10, and the working solution there is to apparently turn off fast boot in Windows 10, but since I don't have Windows 10 on this desktop (and really really don't want it), then that's not an option for me.

 

I can create new System Restore points (but of course there are none from before I booted the Windows 10 USB stick), but I can't stop CHKDSK from trying to run at boot up, and MUCH more importantly, I can't get CHKDSK to successfully scan the C: drive even when I deliberately tell it to in Windows, then of course it schedules CHKDSK for the next reboot, but on reboot CHKDSK just gives the same error as when it always tries on bootup without my telling it to.

 

Using:

 

fsutil dirty query c:

 

says "Volume - C: is dirty"

 

And via REGEDIT, at:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager

 

Then 'BootExecute' contains:

 

autocheck autochk *

 

 

 

Any ideas, please?

[nigsy]

Clean install of W7?

 

I'm wondering if some registry entries have been altered?

[Kerr Avon]

2 hours ago, nigsy said:

Clean install of W7?

 

I'm wondering if some registry entries have been altered?

 

A full format and install of Windows 7 is what I'm trying to avoid, if possible. How would I know of any altered registry settings, please? And why did Windows 10 delete the existing restore points, is a question I'd really like to know, as I can't imagine any circumstances when that 'feature' (which I did NOT tell the Windows 10 installation to do) would be useful.

[nigsy]

44 minutes ago, Kerr Avon said:

 

A full format and install of Windows 7 is what I'm trying to avoid, if possible. How would I know of any altered registry settings, please? And why did Windows 10 delete the existing restore points, is a question I'd really like to know, as I can't imagine any circumstances when that 'feature' (which I did NOT tell the Windows 10 installation to do) would be useful.

 

I'm just guessing TBH about registry; but you may have changed something by booting to W10 from the USB - It doesn't have a live CD version like Linux does so somewhere it's installed something as you've stated you booted to the W10 desktop. Have a look if you have a "Windows.old" folder on your C drive:

 

C:\Windows.old\Users\your_name

 

If you have then I think you may somehow inadvertently installed W10 as an inplace upgrade.

[Tomk_]

autocheck autochk *  is the correct value.

 

If the dirty bit was the only problem, you can turn it off per microsofts instructions: https://support.microsoft.com/fi-fi/help/160963/chkntfs-exe-what-you-can-use-it-for

 

Erasing of restore points is actually fairly easy.  All you have to do is shut system restore off and they will all be gone when you turn it back on.  Perhaps something in the process you went through did that.

 

You might try downloading and running Windows Repair All-in-one. It isn't a repair install, but it will correct some of the important registry entries in windows.

[beagle1]

Hi  Would Running system file Checker help sfc /scannow , note space between c an / , may Help , worth a try ok .. Philip..

[Kerr Avon]

In the end, I decided to reformat and use a backup of the drive's contents, and everything is working fine again. Thanks for the help, though, but life's hectic just now, so using an older backup was just more convenient.

[Tx Redneck]

That's a reasonable solution and a prime example of why backups are good.