Booting up windows 7 after 1 year. Everything is unusuably slow

[Antman]

sfc /scannow hangs at 17%, similar to CHKDSK

Run sfc /scannow from a bootable thumb drive or dvd

[Antman]

I am almost convinced this is a problem with your SSD.

Please describe your Page File settings.
What is the Page File in Windows 10?

[Antman]

Btw unticking some boxes in the AutoStart did improve things a little bit…

Please identify what items you changed.

[clawish]

I am almost convinced this is a problem with your SSD.

Please describe your Page File settings.
What is the Page File in Windows 10?

Paging is 8070 MB, and automatically managed

[clawish]

Delete every folder except Administrator Tools and Startup.

Where are these folders

EDIT: got em

[clawish]

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
Copy this to a new folder on your desktop.

Delete every folder except Administrator Tools and Startup.

Delete everything in the Startup folder.
Delete everything in the Administrator Tools folder EXCEPT Computer Management

stand by

Boot, test

This didn’t help, unfortunately. Will make bootable drive now

[Antman]

Paging is 8070 MB, and automatically managed

disable page file (on every drive if applicable).
boot, test

Return settings to desired configuration.

[clawish]

disable page file (on every drive if applicable).
boot, test

Return settings to desired configuration.

This didn’t help. Unfortunately

[jmarket]

SSDs do not last forever. After so many write cycles, they will fail.

[clawish]

I always recommend a SMART Test for a slow PC (examines physical damage), followed by chkdsk /r from an elevated cmd prompt (examines logical damage).
CHKDSK: What Is It and How Do I Run It? - Ask Leo!

The CHKDSK I ran over night returned with “The volume bitmap is incorrect.” and “Windows found problems with the file system.”.
Running CHKDSK /F didn’t fix the problems.

Assumption:
You are in Safe Mode
PC does not freeze while when you are browsing File Explorer. Please confirm. Dig around. I want you to try and make it freeze by simply reading the disk.

I dug around quite a bit more and managed to consistently hang the computer in safe mode by opening a specific file. So exactly as you wanted…

So the problem still persists and it makes sense to suspect the SSD as the cause. What can I do?

[Antman]

SSD failure not yet proved.
Confirm chkdsk /f was performed from a bootable device other than the SSD.

Recovery options in Windows - Microsoft Support

[clawish]

SSD failure not yet proved.
Confirm chkdsk /f was performed from a bootable device other than the SSD.

Recovery options in Windows - Microsoft Support

Ran “CHKDSK /F F:” from the bootable usb. Now no errors were found. Even the file system after USN Journal didn’t find any errors.

Issue remains unresolved

[Antman]

Assumption: F: was verified to contain your Windows install.

Earlier, you reported chkdsk /r hung at some point. If you were running it in ‘normal’ mode, run it again. Does it hang?
Also, run sfc /scannow again. Does it hang?

[clawish]

Will try out tomorrow and will provide feedback.

[veeg]

Do you have an update for us?