Windows not respsonding

[Mr_Western]

Hey guys,
At this point in time I am really pissed. I have done a system restore to factory state twice and my Laptop still gives the same problem. Here are the symptoms:

-once I boot into windows and I right click on file/folder on the desktop, windows becomes unresponsive and explorer has to restart
-if I try to delete a file and I right click to do so, it crashes again.
-When trying to open a windows document it takes extremely long.
-After a song has ended in WMP it sticks WMP for 30 seconds at which it will then change and continue playing.
-Sometimes it takes forever to open up my computer.
-Windows on the whole is moving very sluggish.
-opening file/folders by double clicking takes extremely long.

Ok now what I have tried:
-Used shexview to isolate a bad shell extension (to no avail)
-System restore to factory state
-Scan using Bit-Defender and Malwarebytes
-Disk Checkup using chkdsk /r
-Defragment of both hard drive and registry

Guys to note
-I did the factory restore from a memory stick that I have stored the Image on, program used to do such was dell data save in both creating the image and restoring the image
-There is a portable hard drive plugged into my laptop that requires disk check (never did it because it takes to long)
-I had two partitions on my hard disk before the factory restore (did not bother to merge the partitions before factory restore)
-Also I did the factory restore from my memory stick twice before with no problems

My Laptop Specs:---->Dell XPS 15 L502X
8 GB DDR3 RAM
750 GB HDD (70% Free)
Windows Home Premium 64-bit (stock OS)
Intel Core i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
Graphics Card GT-540M (2 GB)

Guys this is driving me nuts so I am going to factory restore my laptop by first merging the partitions and using the factory image on the HDD, for the off chance that it does not work please send in answers of how to resolve, if it works I will post up and tell of my results.

Thanks Sincerely,
Mr Western

 

[RealBeast]

I would do a repair installation using a new SP1 image and your Windows 7 key, here is a how to: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html That will save all your data and programs (but back up data just in case things go horribly wrong) and you will only have to reinstall Windows updates since SP1. It fixes registry issues that a restore cannot.

And get a trial SP1 image from here for Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit to do the repair install: http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Windows-7-Download-118183.html

And once that is done and is working well, I would delete all partitions other than the SRP 100mb partition and the C drive OS partition using Windows disk management and then expand your C partition to include all of that space. Whenever I buy a Dell laptop, the first thing I do is unpartition the drive and reinstall Windows to get rid of all the crapware.

 

[Mr_Western]

Best answer selected by Mr_Western.

 

[Mr_Western]

Thank you so much for taking your time to reply to this thread, but I said than at the point of writing that message I would redo the system restore with alterations to the reattempt, and the alterations worked. I am not sure if the re-install of windows on a partitioned hard drive messed it up but this time around I formated the lone partition and merged to the primary and did the factory state restore and at this moment my laptop is running 100X better than before, none of the problems pursist thankfully.
So to all that is looking at this thread for help on your problem and looking to do a system restore to correct your problem ensure.
1) You have no existent partition except for you standard OEM partition and Recovery partition
2) Ensure that the backup media you use (i.e memory stick, external hard drive, DVD, etc) image file isn't corrupted in anyway.
3) Ensure you have chosen the correct recovery option.

Thanks Realbeast for the help.