Apostrophe character in search box after restart!

[wither 3]

You ran sfc /scannow? It looks like it fixed some things but, if it had repaired the problem, you would be telling me about it.

 

[PAB]

You ran sfc /scannow? It looks like it fixed some things but, if it had repaired the problem, you would be telling me about it.

Sorry, I should have said that the apostrophes are still appearing in the Start search box unless I press Esc after rebooting or starting!

 

[wither 3]

No problem. I didn't even notice.

I just wanted to be sure you ran the command I mentioned rather than Startup Repair.

 

[lmacri]

...When I boot or restart the laptop I get a repeated sound just prior to getting to the desktop. When the desktop appears and I click Start, the search box is filling up with apostrophes [as per the screenshot below]...

Hi PAB:

What is the make/model of your computer, and what brand of BIOS does this computer have?

In most cases a clicking noise at boot-up is caused by a problem with your hard drive as it spins up or some other hardware component malfunction (see the support article Clicking Noise During Startup of a Computer) but I found one comment in the BleepingComputer thread Why is My PC Clicking On Startup? where user grtitus stated "I had this clicking noise sometimes when I booted up. Drove me nuts until I realized that when I closed the keyboard tray, the space bar was being held down."

Are you hearing any short and/or long beeps (not clicking) during boot-up? If so, that is probably your computer's BIOS generating a beep code during the power-on self-test (POST) while it runs a diagnostic of hardware components like your keyboard, RAM, disk drive, etc. (i.e., before your operating system is loaded). The Computer Hope article Computer POST and Beep Codes lists some common beep codes for different brands of BIOS. MS MVP Bill Smithers also posted further information about POST beep codes <here> in the MS Answers forum.

I'm not certified as a hardware specialist but if you'd like to run a diagnostic of your system with Piriform's free Speccy utility and then publish a snapshot of your system specs I can take a quick look for any obvious problems. Launch Speccy and allow it to collect information about your system, then go to File | Publish Snapshot and copy and paste the URL this generates (e.g., http: // speccy.piriform.com/results/xxx... ) in your next reply. If you don't want to install Speccy on your system you can save the zipped portable version of Speccy from their builds page <here> onto a USB thumb drive, unzip the .ZIP file (currently spsetup132.zip), and run the executable (Speccy.exe for 32-bit OSs; Speccy64.exe for 64-bit OSs) from the thumb drive.


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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security Deluxe v22.15.1.8 * MS Office Professional 2003 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740

 

[wither 3]

You got me thinking Imacri. I can't account for the apostrophies but I wonder if the Windows sounds are either being distorted by the sound card or it's the sound of the sound card being activated. It's one of the last things loaded before the Windows logo appears.

PAB, are you getting those sounds when the Windows logo appears, just after it appears or before the Welcome?

 

[PAB]

Thanks for the reply lmacri,

[01] I think I can rule out the noises being the HDD as this only happens on startup or when the laptop recovers from sleep. It doesn't happen any other time when the HDD is accessed, regardless of how long the laptop is on.
[02] When I turn the audio off and restart then I don't get the clicking noise but the apostrophes still appear in the start search box.
[03] I have checked all the keys and there are none sticking.
[04] The noise isn't POST, it starts just prior to the Welcome screen.
[05] There has been no new harware installed.
[06] There are no external or USB drives attached and no mouse.
[07] I removed the RAM [2 x 1GB sticks] and nothing happened.
[08] I put the first stick of RAM in the first slot and booted, no change, got the noise and apostrophes.
[09] I put the first stick of RAM in the second slot and booted, no change, got the noise and apostrophes.
[10] I took that stick of RAM out and put in the second stick of RAM in the first slot and booted, no change, got the noise and apostrophes.
[11] I put in the second stick of RAM in the second slot and booted, no change, got the noise and apostrophes.
[12] I disconnected the HDD and booted, it just says media not connected [media test failure].
[13] I tried starting with the CD/DVD tray open as suggested in one of the posts, no change.
[14] The BIOS is Phoenix.
[15] Here are the system specifications from Speccy => My System Specs.

Thanks for the reply wither 3,

I am getting those sounds when the Welcome screen appears!

Once I get passed the Welcome screen I get a single and the double noise followed by a gap and a single noise, none of which I would say are beeps!

NOTE:
This is a very old laptop that I got from a school I worked at about 15 years ago. It was written off and discarded and given to me. It is a:
RM NBOOK 4150
MBD EL81 CBB
CPU CELERON 1733MHz

 

[wither 3]

Kind of interesting. I have this new install of Vista and, when I brought it out of sleep this morning, I got a couple of burps when the desktop loaded. First time that happened. Might be from waking up the sound card.

Do you get the normal sound when the Windows logo appears?

 

[lmacri]

[01] I think I can rule out the noises being the HDD as this only happens on startup or when the laptop recovers from sleep. It doesn't happen any other time when the HDD is accessed, regardless of how long the laptop is on.
[04] The noise isn't POST, it starts just prior to the Welcome screen.
[05] There has been no new harware installed.
[14] The BIOS is Phoenix.
[15] Here are the system specifications from Speccy => My System Specs.

Hi PAB:

Thanks for the Speccy snapshot. For comparison, I've posted a recent Speccy snapshot for my own Vista SP2 computer at http://speccy.piriform.com/results/RsmLIO8LKyp6gyPWMsz2Wvq that you can reference.

Keep in mind that I'm not a computer hardware expert so these comments are for your info only. Speccy is a "quick and dirty" diagnostic and sometimes gives odd results but I did notice that:

• My Windows Updates are listed in a section titled Hotfixes (between Scheduler and System Folders) but the Hotfixes section is missing from your Speccy diagnostic. That seems a bit odd, and somewhat concerning given all the system file errors that sfc /scannow tried to fix.
• According to Speccy your OS was installed on 18/05/2017, which is about the same time this clicking started. Is that the last time you performed a clean reinstall of your OS, and are you certain that Vista SP2 is fully patched to the end of extended support on 11-Apr-2017? If you go to Control Panel | System and Maintenance | Windows Update and click Check for Updates, does Windows Update run to completion in 10 -15 min and report that no further updates are available?
• There's also something a bit odd about your Hitachi ATA drive specs if you've never replaced the hard drive on this machine. Speccy says Power On Time is only 110.0 days (mine is 1099.8 days), but the Wikipedia article S..M.A.R.T. notes that "On some pre-2005 drives, this raw value may advance erratically and/or "wrap around" (reset to zero periodically)". Also, the Model Capacity For This Specific Drive is 800GB but Speccy only detects a capacity of 74 GB (29.6 GB Used / 44 GB Free). I'll assume for now that you actually have a 80 GB drive.
• Your Speccy diagnostic says you have a COMPAL (not Phoenix) BIOS that hasn't been updated since 12/02/2007. I don't think an outdated BIOS version is related to your problem (BIOS updates often do more harm than good) unless you've been updating hardware components like your HDD.

Just FYI there are some Phoenix BIOS beep codes list in the Lifewire article PhoenixBIOS Beep Code Troubleshooting but those codes might not apply to your system if your COMPAL motherboard uses a custom implementation of the PhoenixBIOS system.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security Deluxe v22.15.1.8 * MS Office Professional 2003 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740

 

[PAB]

Thanks for the reply lmacri,

Keep in mind that I'm not a computer hardware expert so these comments are for your info only. Speccy is a "quick and dirty" diagnostic and sometimes gives odd results but I did notice that:

• My Windows Updates are listed in a section titled Hotfixes (between Scheduler and System Folders) but the Hotfixes section is missing from your Speccy diagnostic. That seems a bit odd, and somewhat concerning given all the system file errors that sfc /scannow tried to fix.

I checked WU and it says it has never been run, very strange. I ran WU and I don't have any updates [except a few that are not relevant] outstanding.

• According to Speccy your OS was installed on 18/05/2017, which is about the same time this clicking started. Is that the last time you performed a clean reinstall of your OS, and are you certain that Vista SP2 is fully patched to the end of extended support on 11-Apr-2017? If you go to Control Panel | System and Maintenance | Windows Update and click Check for Updates, does Windows Update run to completion in 10 -15 min and report that no further updates are available?

I think that is probably about the time I did a clean install from an original Win Vista SP1 DVD.

• There's also something a bit odd about your Hitachi ATA drive specs if you've never replaced the hard drive on this machine. Speccy says Power On Time is only 110.0 days (mine is 1099.8 days), but the Wikipedia article S..M.A.R.T. notes that "On some pre-2005 drives, this raw value may advance erratically and/or "wrap around" (reset to zero periodically)". Also, the Model Capacity For This Specific Drive is 800GB but Speccy only detects a capacity of 74 GB (29.6 GB Used / 44 GB Free). I'll assume for now that you actually have a 80 GB drive.

The HDD is the original HDD and yes it is 75-80GB.
I have used this machine as a testing machine where I have probably started it maybe 50 times a day on occasions.

• Your Speccy diagnostic says you have a COMPAL (not Phoenix) BIOS that hasn't been updated since 12/02/2007. I don't think an outdated BIOS version is related to your problem (BIOS updates often do more harm than good) unless you've been updating hardware components like your HDD.

View attachment 30611

Just FYI there are some Phoenix BIOS beep codes list in the Lifewire article PhoenixBIOS Beep Code Troubleshooting but those codes might not apply to your system if your COMPAL motherboard uses a custom implementation of the PhoenixBIOS system.

In the BIOS it is listed as PhoenixBIOS!
There haven't been any hardware components updated.

Do you know of a FREE driver updater for my OS that I could possibly try in case it is actually a driver issue please? I know that some driver update software needs downloading and can be quite large in size!

It might be a case of having to leave this and that I just push ESC when I restart!

 

[PAB]

UPDATE:

When I reboot I get the following screen...

When I run chkdsk C: /F I get the following screen on restart...

[1] I ran Startup Repair from the installation DVD, restarted, and then ran chkdsk C: /F again and still got the same message [Disk checking has been cancelled]!
[2] I then ran sfc /scannow THREE times, restarting in between. Run one on restart said configuring updates. Still had continuous noise and apostrophes.
[3] I then ran chkdsk C: /F and chkdsk C: /R again and still got the same message [Disk checking has been cancelled]!
[4] I then ran chkdsk C: /R from the installation DVD [X:\Sources], screenshot below.

The thing is, it still makes a noise etc after a clean install. It has got to be something POST.

I might try a Repair Install tomorrow [I have a current System Image]!

 

[PAB]

UPDATE:

Once I ran chkdsk C: /R from the installation DVD [X:\Sources] and restarted, the noise and apostrophes have gone. I restarted the laptop TEN times with no noise or apostrophes.

How does that work???

 

[lmacri]

Hi PAB:

I have no idea why that would stop the apostrophes (or commas, or whatever they were) from appearing in the Run box at boot-up, but before you posted your update I found some information on your ChkDsk and Exiting PXE ROM errors so I might as well go ahead and post it. The clicking you were hearing might eventually return if this is a hard drive problem.

Here are a few articles on the "Failed to transfer logged messages to the log event with status 50" message shown at the bottom of your ChkDsk scan results in post # 30. Keep in mind that the some of "solutions" offered in those articles recommends that you purchase their imaging software so I would just ignore those comments. The EaseUS article notes in Solution # 2 that running ChkDsk in Safe Mode should allow ChkDsk to run to completion without throwing this "Status 50" error, but you might have accomplished the same thing by running ChkDsk from your installation DVD.
CHKDSK Failed to Transfer Logged Messages to the Event Log with Status 50
Failed to Transfer Logged Messages to the Log Event with Status 50

According to the Acer support article What Does the Message "Exiting Intel PXE ROM" Mean? it means that "the computer was trying to boot from its network card and not the hard disk drive" so that error is another indication that your computer was likely having problems booting up from your hard drive and moved on to a device with a lower priority in the BIOS's boot order. See the Lifewire tutorial Change the Boot Order in BIOS for more information.

You might still want to consider posting in the BleepingComputer's Internal Hardware board to see if anyone has experience with this issue. They should be able to recommend specialized tools to run a thorough diagnostic on your hard drive and other hardware components. I've used Seagate's SeaTools for Windows described in the Lifewire review Seagate SeaTools to run basic tests on my Western Digital drive, but unfortunately the advanced SeaTools acoustic test for analyzing hard drive sounds only works on Seagate and Maxtor drives. I'm not absolutely certain that your clicking was caused by your hard drive but the DataCent article Hard Drive Sounds notes that clicking sounds on a Hitachi drive can indicate bad read/write heads and could lead to a serious disk failure.

Just an FYI that if ChkDsk runs to completion without a fatal error then the results will be logged in the Event Viewer. Go to Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools | Event Viewer | Windows Logs | Application and look for an event with source Wininit (Event ID 1001). Double-click to open and then copy and paste the log into Notepad or some other text editor. I've actually created a custom filter in my Event Viewer to search for logs with source Wininit that contain my latest ChkDsk results.


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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security Deluxe v22.15.1.8 * MS Office Professional 2003 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740

 

[lmacri]

...When I reboot I get the following screen...

...According to the Acer support article What Does the Message "Exiting Intel PXE ROM" Mean? it means that "the computer was trying to boot from its network card and not the hard disk drive" so that error is another indication that your computer was likely having problems booting up from your hard drive and moved on to a device with a lower priority in the BIOS's boot order. See the Lifewire tutorial Change the Boot Order in BIOS for more information...

Hi PAB:

...and further to my previous post, you should also read the Computer Hope tutorial Getting Boot Error: "PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable", which states:

"This indicates a problem with your computer's pre-boot execution environment (PXE). Most often, this error occurs when your boot sequence is misconfigured in your BIOS, or your boot device (usually your hard drive) cannot be read correctly....It is also possible the SATA cable is defective and the computer is not able to detect the hard drive due to a bad SATA cable. If the cables are firmly connected to the hard drive and to the motherboard, and the error still occurs, try replacing the SATA cable."

Your Speccy diagnostic indicates you have a laptop computer but if you were able to re-seat your RAM chips then it sounds like you're able to get inside the case and access your motherboard. When you check your cable connections make sure to check both ends of the cables for both your hard drive and your Optiarc CD-RW optical drive. If your optical drive is listed above your hard drive in the device boot sequence of your BIOS, the clicking could indicate a problem when your system initially checks to see if a bootable disc is inserted in your optical drive.

I still suspect, though, that your clicking sounds and recent errors are pointing to a problem with your hard drive.
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32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox ESR v52.9.0 * Norton Security Deluxe v22.15.1.8 * MS Office Professional 2003 * Speccy Portable v1.32.740