BleepingComputer.com: Windows Update and restarting

Over probably the past month, i have had countless customers coming in saying that there computer was doing an update, it displayed do not shut down, and then, the battery runs out (on a notebook) or some idiots, they hold the power button in to shut it down, hence rendering the PC/Notebook useless.

Then it comes to me. Just wanting to know, is there anything you can do to prehaps prevent this, or what is the best way to recover from it?

I've spent hours trying system restore, start-up repairs etc... (also on XP machines) Just to find out, the easiest thing to do is format reinstall.

So, any other suggestions? (other than turn off windows updates)

Seriously though, if it tells you, Don't turn me off, i will shut myself down when finished. Why would you turn it off??

It all depends on what caused the error (other than the shutting down) and how much work you're willing to invest in repairing it.
There's many different ways to repair things - using normal mode, safe mode, and the RE environment.

The actual fix is likely to take only a couple of minutes - but figuring out what the exact problem is and what the appropriate fix is can take days.
So, it becomes a decision for the customer - do you want to pay for troubleshooting (at an hourly rate for an unlimited amount of time) or do you want a backup and a wipe/reinstall (which'll take a couple of hours)?

Problem is that most of the customers have programs such as quickbooks (which is a pain to reinstall and get data working again) or other programs that only let them activate it once, no matter how much you plead... Which often still results in wiping and starting again...

It seems most of the problems are coming from people shutting down the computer whilst updating. When this problem occurs you are unable to get into normal mode or safe mode, then RE enviroment is pretty much useless to unless you have a start-up problem, what happened to the good old file checker in XP?

hi i am new to this so pardon me if i have came into the wrong area but this problem seems to be the one i am experiencing. I was using my brothers laptop whilst i shut down i was in such a hurry i didnt notice any note etc. i left the laptop as it was ie didnt unplug or shut down the lid. however when i came in my mother said that i hadnt turned it off properly so she 'just switched it off at the wall'. i didnt realise ther was a problem til my brother tried to switch it on and it keeps sayin it needs to do a startup repair. (looks like some sort of safe mode as screen is grey)

it runs thru this and says that the computer cant fix by itself then sometimes flashes up with a disk error?? i asked our IT guy at work if he could have a look at it...he said he tried a system restore to the last date where an image had been taken of the operating system? and whilst it said it had been successful when he rebotted the machine the same start up repair mesg came up. he the advised he might need some discs that came with the computer but as my brother actually bought the laptop from someone and not direct from the store he doesnt have the discs

is this unrepairable?? any help would be greatly appreciated as i hav an extremely irrate brotehr on my case!

From what i have found with this problem... it is a lot quicker to take the HDD out and copy any data onto another PC, then put the HDD back into the notebook and re-install the OS. Since you have no disks, you may have to buy a new OS, or if it's a legit version, you will have a product key on the bottom, you'd just need to find someone with the right disk, maybe you IT guy...

Sorry for the bad news.

Most problems are fixable. The issue is the time that it's gonna take to figure out exactly what the problem is, and then locate the fix that's needed.

Most people don't want to spend that amount of time - especially if it's open-ended ("it'll be fixed....eventually").
So often, as a matter of convenience, a user may elect to backup, wipe, and reinstall to save time (not everyone likes troubleshooting as much as I do!

To prevent this in the future, some extra work is required.
First and foremost are good backups. Without them it's very difficult to recover your work without special tools/techniques.
Next is preservation of the system state. This can be partially taken care of by System Restore - but it's not a 100% solution.
To preserve the system state, a disk image is needed.

Disk images take up an awful lot of space. But when do you need an image? It's too late to make one when the system gets "borked".
So you've gotta make them when the system is working fine - and update them as you add things to the system.

Finally, quite a few of these sort of problems can be "fixed" by a repair install of the OS - but it's not 100% and it does take some time to do the repair and then reupdate Windows. SFC.EXE usually won't work for a Windows Update problem because the new update has replaced the files in the system cache with the new version already.

i don't mind troubleshooting if the customer is wiling to pay for it, but try tell the customer (home users mainly) that they need to do a backup of important files let alone try get them to do a disk image!