What's wrong with my laptop?

Don't know if this should go in the laptop or not but please move if so.

So onto my problem, I have an ASUS UL80J, got it about a year ago. Very reliable, sturdy laptop till about 2 weeks ago or so. It will not load the Desktop, and recently, won't even login. When it did login, all it loaded was a blue desktop wall paper and that's it. You couldn't Ctrl Alt Delete or anything. But recently, once you login the blue load circle thing completely freezes. Only thing that works is safemode which i am typing from now (My desktop has given out). And this is all i have for now. I have no diagnosis as to why my laptop has done this. It was working flawlessly till then it randomly started doing this. A virus is highly unlikely as only my mother uses this to pay bills and do work stuff on. Only thing she downloads is pdf files and word docs. So if you guys could help me out that'd be nice...safe mode isn't that bad to be honest but i'd like the native resolution back. Thanks in advance!

if its ok in safe mode then its likely to be a software problem--possibly caused by windows updates going wrong or something

in safe mode try to use system restore to send it back to before the problem started

if that doesnt work then try safe mode and type msconfig in the search box--open msconfig and either choose diagnostic startup or look under the tab that lists all the programs that load at startup and disable any that dont look critical to bootup--restart into normal windows and see if that helps

turn off your antivirus before doing system restore if its enabled--or use system restore by pressing f8 at bootup and choosing repair my computer option--if one restore point wont complete a different one might work

check for any recent windows updates that may have failed to install correctly

run ccleaner--free program that removes junk files

open a command prompt and type sfc /scannow and press enter--this will check system files

open a command prompt and type chkdsk /f and tell it yes you want to schedule it for next reboot

hopefully one of those might help

sys restore failed i used another restore point that was 3 months old and it still failed. gonna try the cmd commands now

oh god guys, i made it to the desktop after disk check, but it froze on the desktop i was like fml...and things just got worse, safe mode refuses to boot now. it freezes on loading files. I have no idea what is causing this... it got worse i cant boot safe mode now and i am using Asus Express Gate. Asus's crappy os but it has a web browser. which i am using to talk now . i dont know what to do anymore i cant even enter safe mode, ill try again in a second but it probablyy wont work. *** dude can this get any worse? sigh....ill be back again

you could use the recovery partition by pressing f9 at boot up--but dont know if it will offer a non destructive recovery so you might lose all your data

i wouldnt go paying out unless you know the hard drive is faulty--even then its probably still under warranty

if you find out the maker of the hard drive you can use their diagnostic tools to test the drive

some laptops even have diagnostic software built in that can be accessed even if windows wont boot--dont know about asus

but paying out should be your last resort

CHDSK didn't do anything, didn't even replace or recovver any orphaned files, so i don't know why safe mode isn't working anymore. I doubt this is hardware related as windows still gets to the login screen and such. Could be, I don't know. Maybe just a reinstall of windows will fix everything. And no, I don't have Windows, or repair disk.

look up a linux diagnostic tool called partedmagic. download the ISO and burn it to CD. boot to PM from the disk on your laptop. Use the smart diagnostic tool to test your hard drive. If it is fine then attach a usb hard drive to the laptop and move your essential files off to that drive. This will require mounting both drives which is just a click in disk mount. After documents are migrated run destructive restore from recovery partition. If the HD didn't pass the test then buy a new HD and order discs from Asus to restore the OS on the new HD.

I didn't see an answer to the question of the restore discs, or recovery partition. Do you have either (the recovery partition would normally be drive D).

Since safe mode will no longer load, try booting to safe mode with command prompt. At the command line, type rstrui. That should kick off the system restore from the command prompt.

There's still a couple things you can do....

You can remove the drive, and slave it into another computer by a cable, or by a docking station. You can then pull data off it, and/or run some diagnostics on it.

If you do have a recovery partition, or restore discs, you can try to restore windows.

+1

if all fails and you can still use internet, download puppy linux or ubuntu, run it from the cd or usb stick, use gparted on your drive or use ubuntu's antivirus to scan your hdd.
the partedmagic method by pale paladin should also work.
good luck.