After restart, many things disappered

[Wormz13]

A family member's computer was making some sort of clicking noise. The family
member powered down the computer, let it sit and then restarted it. After
that restart, everything from the cd drives to the video card to the usb
ports stopped working. I checked Hardware Devices and almost every device had
a yellow yield sign. I tried to reinstall the drivers but it wouldn’t let me.
Also, every folder on their system switched to Read-Only and they won't
switch off. There were no error on screen, none during start up and none in
the log. Also, Windows firewall wont start, it keeps saying the service is
not running, so when I go to start the service, it says it can not find the
file scvhost.exe. I looked in the system32 folder and its there.
Does anyone have any idea what happened and if it is reversible without a
complete format/reinstall.

 

[smlunatick]

A family member's computer was making some sort of clicking noise. The family
member powered down the computer, let it sit and then restarted it. After
that restart, everything from the cd drives to the video card to the usb
ports stopped working. I checked Hardware Devices and almost every devicehad
a yellow yield sign. I tried to reinstall the drivers but it wouldn’t let me.
Also, every folder on their system switched to Read-Only and they won't
switch off. There were no error on screen, none during start up and none in
the log. Also, Windows firewall wont start, it keeps saying the service is
not running, so when I go to start the service, it says it can not find the
file scvhost.exe. I looked in the system32 folder and its there.
Does anyone have any idea what happened and if it is reversible without a
complete format/reinstall.

Clicking sounds tend to "indicate" the hard drive (main drive C at
least) is failing and will die any time. If you can, back up all
important documents and you need to replace the hard drive as soon as
possible, before it dies.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

A family member's computer was making some sort of clicking noise. The
family
member powered down the computer, let it sit and then restarted it. After
that restart, everything from the cd drives to the video card to the usb
ports stopped working. I checked Hardware Devices and almost every device
had
a yellow yield sign. I tried to reinstall the drivers but it wouldn't let
me.
Also, every folder on their system switched to Read-Only and they won't
switch off. There were no error on screen, none during start up and none
in
the log. Also, Windows firewall wont start, it keeps saying the service is
not running, so when I go to start the service, it says it can not find
the
file scvhost.exe. I looked in the system32 folder and its there.
Does anyone have any idea what happened and if it is reversible without a
complete format/reinstall.

Yes, it's clear what has happened

And No, you definitely do need to format and reinstall, but to a new hard
drive.

Sounds such as the ones you describe indicate impending hard disk failure.
It probably doesn't have much time left, perhaps in the range of hours or
minutes.

You need to STOP using that drive right now, remove it from the system, and
only use it again to try to get documents off it after you have rebuilt the
system.

Poking at that drive otherwise only makes the data recovery process less
likely to succeed.

New drives are not expensive; where I am, 500-gig drives are under $100.
You just need to be sure you get the same type, IDE or SATA, and if IDE, set
the jumpers the same.

HTH
-pk

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

A family member's computer was making some sort of clicking noise. The family
member powered down the computer, let it sit and then restarted it. After
that restart, everything from the cd drives to the video card to the usb
ports stopped working. I checked Hardware Devices and almost every device had
a yellow yield sign. I tried to reinstall the drivers but it wouldn’t let me.
Also, every folder on their system switched to Read-Only and they won't
switch off. There were no error on screen, none during start up and none in
the log. Also, Windows firewall wont start, it keeps saying the service is
not running, so when I go to start the service, it says it can not find the
file scvhost.exe. I looked in the system32 folder and its there.
Does anyone have any idea what happened and if it is reversible without a
complete format/reinstall.

Almost certainly you have a hardware problem, not a Windows one. It
sounds very much like your hard drive has died, and needs to be
replaced. It will not be reversible *with* just a complete
format/reinstall.