Windows 7 Problem After Failed Hard Drive... Problem Resolved!

I had a hard drive failure on my Dell Windows 7 system back at the end of November.  I ended up purchasing a new drive and copying the drive to it.  Everything appeared to work without any problems.  Updates were working and overall the system seemed to be working correctly.  I thought the problem was resolved and everything was going to work correctly.

Starting a few weeks into January, I started noticing problems with Windows 7 not being able to get Windows updates.  It would display a error message that "Windows update can not currently check for updates, because the service is not currently running".  I checked to confirm the service was running and could not get it check for updates.  I even tried clearing out the directory where updates are stored to see if perhaps it was corrupted, but the updates still would not run.  This was true for Microsoft Security Essentials as well and it had not received updated since the last week of December.

I tried various things to try and resolve the problem.  Going into the middle of last week I was planning on reformatting and installing Windows 7.  Not a huge problem in itself, but I did not look forward to getting all of my music off or the various programs I use re-installed.  I spent the rest of last week preparing to do the re-installation this weekend.  Backing up files, locating installation disks, etc.

Saturday morning I was ready to do the installation and decided to do one last search to see if I could find a solution for the problem of why Windows Updates would not work.  I found a article that spoke about having a old, outdated, or not installed Intel Rapid Storage Technology causing the problem I was seeing.  I decided to give it a try, so I downloaded the program.  The system rebooted and when it came back up, I found that I could at least get into the Windows Update section now on my computer without the error.  The system starting checking for updates and since I had removed all previous history of the updates, there were a lot to download.  It was working again and all because when I re-imaged to another drive the Intel Rapid Storage Technology had to be re-installed.

Everything is working again and I do not need to install Windows 7 again.  I made sure that Microsoft Security Essentials was running too and that it would update.  I promptly ran a full scan on the computer and found a few trojans that had gotten through when apparently I was unable to check or do Windows Updates.

As of today, the computer appears to be running smooth with Windows Updates running correctly and no errors showing up in the logs.  Ah, it is good to have my computer back and working properly.  I would provide a link back to the file I downloaded to correct the problem, but I cannot find it in my history.  If you are having a similar problem, I would suggest searching for the Intel Rapid Storage program.