Win7 won't finish loading on my laptop, and I'm trying to find a way to get any tool, like smartctl, onto a USB stick so that I can check the hard drives.   I've used wmic which says the drives are OK, but I wanted to see if I could dig any deeper.  The problem with smartctl is that I can only download the Windows setup exe, which is no help since I've only got my laptop and a linux machine to work with. Obviously I should have installed smartctl before I had this issue :(  hdtune would have been good as well, but I can't run it from the command prompt, even if i could get it installed.  This question is a result of my earlier question   I've seen this question below but can't use any of the solutions (except wmci)
57308
How can I read the  S.M.A.R.T. state of my HDDs while using Windows 7, either automatically or manually?
12606
I've got a USB stick with multiple Partitions on it (FAT32 (active), FAT32, Ext2, but that's another story) and it seems like that my Windows XP can only mount the first partition of the stick. If I try to mount the second one using the volume manager it tells me that I need to make it active and reboot...is it really that limited or am I just missing something here?  Partitions:   FAT32, System Rescue CD, bootable and active FAT32, some tools ext2, some data (I know that I need extra drivers, etc., but that's not asked here)
59933
The reason that I cannot use a usb or cd is because the 'xHCL Compliant Host Controller' is not working on my laptop. I have tried every methods I could find, even resetting my laptop to factory settings as a last resort. But, to reset my laptop, I got rid of my Ubuntu partition and I've been looking for a solution to get it back. I have tried Unetbootin as I've seen recommended online, but I get this error from the Windows boot manager while trying to boot using unetbootin: note: i was trying to install ubuntu 20.04 on my disk using ubuntu, as shown here: . However this was to dual boot with Windows 7, and I have Windows 10 so maybe that is the problem? Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. to fix the problem:      1. Insert your windows installation disc and restart your computer.   2. Choose your language settings, and then click &quot;Next.&quot;   3. Click &quot;Repair your computer.&quot;  If you do not have this disk, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.      Files: \ubnldr.mbr          Status: 0xc000007b      Info: The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or            contains errors   If anyone knows whether it is feasible to install ubuntu on my laptop without a USB or DVD, or if you have any ideas on how to make it work, let me know! my laptop: ASUS UX330UAK Windows version: 10.0.18363 Build 18363 BIOS mode: UEFI Let me know what other information is needed! NOTE: I see a lot of discussions about this topic where people just say &quot;just use a USB&quot; but that is NOT possible in my case, and I can't use a DVD either (I don't have a slot for it). Similarly, SD cards also do not work. I am not looking for a solution to fix my USB driver (or whatever it is that isn't working) since I spent two days in the guts of google trying all the different solutions, I doubt there is a solution I haven't tried. Sending my laptop to the manufacturer is not an option as I need it everyday for classes and work.
17316
I have a Windows machine (laptop) that needs fixing. The current installation is really badly broken (e.g. the taskbar is unresponsive, but the Explorer windows work, booting takes literally half an hour) and when I try to access the settings app and click on the tile to access the reset settings it instantly crashes. The same happens in Safe Mode.  I have created a USB install medium using the tool offered by Windows on my own Windows desktop machine. I've ensured that both the laptop and the USB tool have the same version of Windows (Home, 64-bit, NL). When I want to reinstall Windows on the laptop with this stick I am asked to enter a serial number which I obviously don't have. I don't want to try and see if I can phone activate it, because if it fails the install is gone.  I need to reinstall this Windows machine from a USB stick. There are a few problems I can't find an immediate solution for on the .   If I use a tool such as  to extract the serial number, will this work? If the above does not work, how can I reinstall this Windows machine?
1495
I have an Asus R500VD laptop which came with the preinstalled Windows 8. As actually this computer will be used by my grandmother (and she's only using win 7) I'd like to downgrade it.  Thanks to other thread here, I was able to successfully boot computer from Windows 7 USB stick, but unfortunately during install I got a message:  A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. (...)   and I can't get pass it... This is what I've done:   I've downloaded all drivers from Asus Website (), unzip and copied to visible location for windows 7 installation - I've picked each one of them, none has helped. As I belive it's some kind of problem with SATA/RAID/AHCI drivers I went to Intel site and downloaded various "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" drivers - a lot of them were recognized by win7, but none of them helped.   Does anyone have an idea what can I do next? Any help would be really appreciated.
11245
I have a 1.5TB USB drive with many important files that I want to give to a friend (they have Windows7) for reading only purposes.  appears to flip a registry switch but it seems to be on the local pc only.  UPDATE:  Are you aware of any USB drives that have such functionality built into their firmware?
19097
Is there a way to read ext4 partitions from Windows? If so, what can I do?
9490
Recently I got a virus on my computer that completely wiped the hdd. I am trying to install windows xp to this: DV7-636bus laptop from HP, and I get the following BSOD:  A problem...............and Then Select Safe Mode.  Technical Information:  ***STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005,0xF73B9D66,0xF78D1EA0,0xF78D1B9C)  acpi.sys - Address F72B9D66 base at F73AE000, Datestamp 480252b1   Does any one know of a solution for this?
42103
Is there a utility for Windows that operates similarly to iotop for Linux?  I'm looking for simple tool that can tell me what applications are writing to disk and how much they're actually writing.
97886
I'm not even sure if i worded my question right but, I'm familiarizing myself with Ubuntu and want to install it on a new desktop I just finished putting together so I'm trying it on my laptop via live usb first.    I had trouble mounting my NTFS windows partitioned disks, solved that problem but I also see a disk that has the exact amount of memory I alloted for persistence. I try to access it but it shows the same ACL error I got when my NTFS disks weren't mounting.    I've already downloaded some stuff and made some things with LibreOffice and want to know if those things have been save automatically or if I have to mount the usb disk for it to be persistent.
48584
I just bought a serial for Windows 7 on-line from the Microsoft store (the most painful shopping experience EVER!). I selected that I wanted to download my version of Windows 7 after purchase. After payment, I have listed a Product Key but no download link in sight.   Where do I download my Windows 7 ISO to burn to disk?  Note: I'm not a Technet or MSDN subscriber.
46808
My company is in the process of upgrading all of our users from old Windows XP computers to newer quad-core Win7 computers.  This is a good thing - it's long overdue that we upgrade our workstations - but I now spend a ton of time configuring new computers.  Is there any way to automate this process?  The steps that I go through with just about every computer:   Run through Win7 setup process (we do mostly HPs, so we get the stupid "The computer is personal again" thing.   Uninstall bloatware (norton, bing bar, roxio, etc.) Install Updates Add to domain &amp; configure network settings Install Office, and other company-specific applications Configure important shortcuts (Outlook on task bar)   There's a couple other things that I do after that that would be nice to automate, but it's unlikely due to license keys, passwords, etc.   Configure Outlook Pull in files/settings with easy transfer wizard Map network drives   I know that it's possible to create a complete image of a computer, but how does that work with different hardware/drivers?  What about Win7 license keys?  If there is a way to make this work, what is the best (preferably free/open source) software out there to do this?
108498
I am using Ubuntu 12.04. I want to install Windows 7 on my system from a CD through VirtualBox. I searched the detailed tutorials through google but I did not find one that worked.   So can some one kindly share any detailed tutorial or link which will really help me out.
56257
In an attempt to get a  I followed a suggestion to uninstall all devices of type Mass Storage using . Now, Windows 7 does not show any mass storage device, even the ones that worked previously. For example, a connected USB pen drive is listed in USBDeview as not connected:    In the Device Manager it appears with an exclamation mark:    It is not shown at all in Disk Managment.  I already tried reinstalling my  Intel chipset drivers, but to no avail.  How do I get USB mass storage to work again?
98140
Any recommendations on  tools for Windows? Ideally ones that could leverage 64-bit OS.  I'm aware of , of course, and have also found , but I'm wondering if there are any hidden gems out there?
47175
I accidentally installed some USB drivers to my Windows 7 system, they were the wrong ones and now my keyboard and mouse won't work. A system restore would get rid of them, but obviously I can't control my computer to make that happen.  Keyboard and mouse still work before windows has loaded, in the BIOS and boot system, so can I do anything from there? I've already tried booting into another OS, accessing my windows filesystem and deleting the Program Files entry, but it didnt work so they must go deeper than that. Or could i launch it from a remote machine? I've got some VNC server insalled so if i could get that running that could work.
113269
I have an ASUS X205TA with MS Windows 8.1.  This has a 32 GB drive, but it also uses WIMBoot and has a recovery partition.  I am unable to get more than 7.5 GB of free space.  Microsoft offer a Windows 10 media creation tool to allow people to create a USB stick to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.  I place a newly formatted 16 GB USB stick in. I download the tool from Windows. I start the tool.  The tool doesn't ever ask me where to download the stuff.  I step through the tool, it gathers info, and it stops with the error message "We need 8 GB of disc space. Remove any files or apps that you no longer need, or use Disk Cleanup to create some space, then try again".  How do I upgrade to Windows 10 with the limited amount of drive space I have available? Especially if the media creation tool can't do it.