Incredibly Long Boot Times and Freezing on Lenovo Laptop

heldmacm

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Jun 30, 2009
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Hi all,

I bought a Lenovo G555 laptop in new condition, and it can't be more than two years old. For quite some time, it's had several annoying problems. Most notably, it occasionally completely freezes; this can occur while using it, or when opening the lid after it has not been in use. The second issue is that the time it takes to boot up is no less than 20 to 30 minutes. This occurs whether the computer is restarted or booted up after being off.

Here are the remedies I have already tried:

-Restoring to factory condition (several times)
-Daily antivirus scans (full scans once a week) with the most up to date virus definitions (I use avast! and nothing is detected)
-Full Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware scans with the most up to date definitions (no malware found)

I do not have an extreme amount of software installed, as I think I'm pretty careful about what I install on my PCs.

On top of this, beginning today, Windows is now reporting there is a problem with the battery and it needs to be replaced, but the problems described above began long before this happened.

I don't know if this makes any difference, but this PC is nearly always plugged in, as we only unplug it to take it elsewhere on fairly rare occasions.

Your help would greatly be appreciated.
 

heldmacm

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Jun 30, 2009
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18,510
Here's an update: since I have a Western Digital hard drive, I booted to DOS using the Hirens CD boot disc and ran their WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic Utility. The quick scan indicated a problem (error/status code: 0007 - "Read Element Failure") and indicated doing an extended scan will attempt to fix the problem. I let it continue, and it indicated it fixed the issue. I restarted and right away I received a "BOOTMGR image is corrupt" error that prevented me from booting to Windows 7. I did some additional research and saw some suggestions that booting to the System Recovery Options screen (from the Windows 7 Recovery Disc) and selecting Startup Repair may fix the issue. I did this, and it attempted to reboot one unsuccessfully; it tried a second time and was able to load Windows.

I thought I was out of the woods, but immediately, I noticed some odd things. Every time Windows loads, I receive messages that some indicate problems with my Desktop Manager, audio (though the sound still worked), and network card (unlike the audio, I did not have connectivity). I was able to fix the network card issue by removing the drivers, rebooting and letting Windows find and reinstall the appropriate drivers, but the other two message persist each time I boot. Additionally, there is another extremely strange issue I've noticed that did not occur prior to running the hard drive diagnostic utility: each time I use Firefox (updated to the latest version) and go Gmail or use the Google search bar feature that is part of Firefox, Firefox immediately crashes before even loading Gmail or the search results. It's bizarre to say the least, and I've not noticed any other sites I've visited that crash Firefox, but going to either of those places crash it each time.

I haven't had a chance to see what, if anything, else may be wrong, but I find it very odd that running a hard drive diagnostic utility and letting it (supposedly) fix the problem would result in this behavior. However, it now appears I have an even bigger issue, as once I took it out of Hibernate mode this morning, it's been sitting at the "Welcome" screen for the past five to ten minutes; this also happened last night during a reboot, but does not happen every time, as I have been able to successfully load Windows a few times. What are my next options?

Thanks again for everyone's help.