Crashing, Freezing, and Bizarre Noises

Hello, Bleeping Computer, and thanks for providing these awesome forums for us to consult.
My computer had been working nicely up until a strange point today, and now it is barely able to boot up properly.

The browser was responding very slowly, and then hung and crashed. I reopened it, but it then froze, with prompts saying 'the following plugin has crashed: unknown,' asking me whether I wanted to stop the plugin. Both yes and no had no response, so I forcefully closed the window.
After that the computer froze altogether, so forced a shut down.

When it booted, it said 'windows is recovering files' and froze 3/4 of the way on the loading bar. Another force shut down.
It booted properly after, but was extremely slow. I ran MBAM, which froze after 20 minutes and the mouse and other buttons had no response, so (again) I forcefully shut the computer down.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, after this boot there were about two others that came up with a message saying that Windows failed to communicate with a driver or hardware attached to my computer, even though there's nothing plugged in except the mouse. Error code was 0xc00000e9, 'unexpected I/O error has occurred'

After the next boot, Lenovo system repair came up before I got to the Windows booting screen, telling me my computer didn't boot properly (system repair, tell me something I don't know -_-). I ran it, but it failed to repair the computer, saying that at Repair: System files integrity check and repair, it had failed with error code 0x45d.
Reboot, started properly, I ran system restore but I have no restore points. I ran MBAM quick scan instead of full, but it froze. The screen went black after a while, but I could move the mouse - yet after waiting for some time with no response, shut down and decided to consult the ever-wise members here.

I noticed that the computer was making odd noises - muffled clicking, a sound that sounds like scraping, as well as strange little beeps that seem to happen whenever the slight delay in response recovers, almost like a hiccup. It has never made these sounds and shows no signs of overheating.
I would appreciate any and all help in solving this problem; it is my main computer for working and I have no other alternatives. I suspect a virus but cannot even get MBAM to run. Thanks in advance for your time and knowledge!

Hello,which operating system is this boot error occurring on?

Oh, very sorry for not mentioning that!
I'm running Windows 7 on a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge.



EDIT
Thanks I am moving you to WIN7 as it looks like a boot error and may not be malware.

Hi -
Go to > Start > Programs > Accessories and look for Command Prompt > Right click and select Run as Administrator -
Now type sfc /scanow (note the space after c) and press Enter -
This should only take about half an hour to run (more on some but rarely less) and will first check your System Files -
Next repeat the above procedures, but type chkdsk /r (note the space after k) and press Enter -
This will take at least 1 hour, and up to 2 hours to run -
These are all off line procedures, so you do not need to be connected to the internet at any time

Please post back with your situation after this -

Thank You -

Hi, thanks for providing your assistance!

I've been trying to get onto my computer to follow the above steps, but every time I boot, the computer is continually gives me the message 'Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.
..........
Error code 0xc00000e9
An unexpected I/O error has occurred'
Even though there's nothing connected to the computer except for the mouse.

Then it promptly restarts after I press either 'continue' or 'exit.'
Is there a way to surpass this so I can properly log on and scan my system files?

EDIT: I finally managed to boot it in safe mode with command prompt. Hopefully that's acceptable, since I can't find any other way to get around the device error.
I'll report back on what both scans say soon!

EDIT 2:
sfc /scannow turned up with 'no integrity violations.'
On the other hand, chkdsk /r told me this: 'the type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive-
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the computer restarts? <Y/N>'

I managed to run chkdsk in safe mode with networking after a restart.
The computer looked fine after that, I tried to scan with MBAM. However, I opened google chrome, and after a while, the computer froze again.
I force shut it down, and now it cannot even make it to the screen where I can choose safe mode.
I'd really appreciate any help to get this resolved ASAP, as I have urgent work to do on the computer, and I can't even make it to the welcome screen now. I would restore to factory settings except the computer freezes on the screen before that option.

I noticed that the computer was making odd noises - muffled clicking, a sound that sounds like scraping, as well as strange little beeps that seem to happen whenever the slight delay in response recovers, almost like a hiccup. It has never made these sounds and shows no signs of overheating.
I would appreciate any and all help in solving this problem; it is my main computer for working and I have no other alternatives. I suspect a virus but cannot even get MBAM to run. Thanks in advance for your time and knowledge!

Don't mean to be an alarmist, but those noises are a good indication your hard drive may be failing.

Do you have recent backups on a second hard drive?

How old is the system anyway?

If you don't have recent backups, and you can't boot try removing the hard drive from the system and attaching to a second computer and copy your data over that way.

Also, what did the chkdsk scan show? If you can get into safe mode again, open up event viewer and you can find the chkdsk logs in:

Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application

Sort by 'Source' and look for 'Chkdsk' as the source. The Event Viewer will list each scan. Click on your most recent scan to view both system-event information and scan results in the preview pane.
You can save it as a text file by clicking the 'Save Selected Events' action button in the action panel.

Hope I am wrong about the hard drive getting ready to fail, good luck.

Don't mean to be an alarmist, but those noises are a good indication your hard drive may be failing.

Do you have recent backups on a second hard drive?

How old is the system anyway?

If you don't have recent backups, and you can't boot try removing the hard drive from the system and attaching to a second computer and copy your data over that way.

Also, what did the chkdsk scan show? If you can get into safe mode again, open up event viewer and you can find the chkdsk logs in:

Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application

Sort by 'Source' and look for 'Chkdsk' as the source. The Event Viewer will list each scan. Click on your most recent scan to view both system-event information and scan results in the preview pane.
You can save it as a text file by clicking the 'Save Selected Events' action button in the action panel.

Hope I am wrong about the hard drive getting ready to fail, good luck.

You're actually very right, unfortunately - my hard drive failed just about an hour ago, before you made that post.
It is now showing the message 'the operating system could not be found' and will not move beyond that screen.
Fortunately, when it worked briefly for about two hours yesterday evening, I managed to copy every single one of my important files onto an external HD, which is a big relief to me.

However, the laptop was only 2 years old, so I'm wondering if a virus was the cause of the failure.. it had been behaving normally up until Saturday morning, which is when a first crash happened. After rebooting from this first crash, the odd noises began and only intensified from there.

Since it has crashed, I was never able to check what the chkdsk log stated, but thanks anyway for attempting to help! Since this computer is pretty much dead, I'll probably look into getting a new one now. My only concern is that I wasn't able to deactivate the licenses on some of my programs, like Photoshop and my one-computer license for MBAM. Do you know if those will generally recognize if the previous license is no longer 'in use' by a system and allow use on a new system?

Oh Dear Nightingaling,

Sorry to hear about your hard drive failure, but you got your backups and that is great.

I do not think that there is any malware or virus that can cause actual hardware failures, but there are others on this forum that can tell you with more certainty.

System is only 2 years old, might still be under warranty? No reason to get a new computer, just replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Do you have a reinstall disk handy?

The software licenses should install without issue on a new install, if not just contact vendor and they should be able to help you out.

Ok, good to hear that about the software licenses, thanks!
And yeah, I'm very glad that I had the sense to back things up yesterday rather than foolishly assume that things had been fixed.

I'm not sure about the malware/virus thing either, but since it happened to suddenly, I've no idea what the cause could have been. Perhaps it was just the 'natural' time for the system to fail. Sadly, although it had a warranty, the warranty just expired a couple of months ago. It also came with Windows 7 preinstalled (I don't know why we keep on buying laptops like that), so I don't have a repair or reinstall disc to use even if we bought a new hard drive. I might take it to a repair shop or at least see how much new HDs cost, though, before making a hasty decision. Thank you for your advice, at any rate!