Computer Repair - Startup Issues

This guide will show you how to repair common issues with startup in a computer's OS. This guide will cover how to fix a program running at startup that may be malicious or has a function that is unwanted, in this case it simply restarts the computer. This guide will explain how to access the folder through a command line and delete the offending file.

Step 1: Determine What the Error Is

Step one is to determine what the error is caused by. If you have a BSOD (Blue Screen) there is normally a file that is called out or an error code that you can search up that can help to point you in the right direction. In this specific case, the PC boots normally but then shuts off after calling out a a simple error. This is most likely caused by something running upon startup and causing the computer to shut off

Step 2: How Can We Fix This?

The desktop is not up for long enough that we can navigate to the folder within the system's GUI. Because of this, we need to navigate to the command line environment and delete the folder from there, we can do this in 2 ways.

Step 3: Using a Windows Install Media

Using a windows install disk or media device, we can access the recovery environment by booting into the system installation disk and selecting "Repair my computer". What is done in this menu will be discussed in the next step.

Step 4: Using Windows Built-in Recovery

To get to the recovery environment within windows, you just need to hold shift, and click restart in the start button. If you are unable to boot to desktop, when you restart the computer, hold shift and spam F8 once you see the first image on screen.

Step 5: What Do the Options on the Windows RE Do?

System Restore - Uses a restore point to replace registries, documents and other important files. This restore point is a file that a user must create to use. This restore point will remove all progress on any file that you have done after the restore point was made, to use this option, setting a restore point frequently is recommended.

System image recovery - This is a complete copy of your operating system, it encompasses everything that is on the hard drive.

Startup Repair - This is an option where the computer attempts to find missing or broken files and replace them with working copies. This usually doesn't work because windows is bad. The function also runs BCD commands to help fix broken boot files.

Command Prompt - This boots you into a command line, this allows you to edit vital system files. This is risky because you can break the system even more if you don’t know what you are doing.

Startup settings - This allows you to choose specifically how to start the system, like booting into Safe Mode with a few more functions enabled.

Step 6: Command Line

We will be choosing this because the other options most likely are impractical at this point. For example, if you haven't made a system image or restore point, then this is one of your only options. When you choose the command line you will see a black screen with the current drive letter directory, this is the recovery environment directory, you must use the drive letter command to change to the correct directory, which may be F:, D:, C:, E:. To check if these are the correct, use the dir command and the files that should show up is windows and programs, along with 3 other files.

Step 7: Navigating to Startup Folder

You will want to run this command: cd “C:/users/pc/appdata/roaming/microsoft/windows/start menu/programs/startup” This command navigates the the startup folder within windows.

Once you are in this directory, use the command dir, this shows files and folders within the current working directory.

Step 8: Viewing Files in Startup Folder

Run the dir command to view the contents in the startup folder. If you see files like .bat files, or strange files that don’t correspond to the folder(.vbs), you can google the file name or if you know that it shouldn’t be there, then you can use the del command to delete the file for example: del (filename)

Step 9: Identifying the Problem

Another way to easily view what the file is, use the type command, and you can view what the file does. If it has something like "shut down" or gives you a error message, then you know that that is the reason that your computer is shutting down.

Step 10: Deleting the Problem

Once you have identified the problem, use the del command and then put the filename afterwards and that will delete the file from the startup folder. The commands we used were "del asys32.vbs" and "del browser.bat".

Step 11: Complete

Now that you have deleted the files that are causing the problem within the startup folder, you should be able to boot to desktop and your computer should work as normal.