Laptop stuck in startup repair

[mom26gr8kids]

My laptop keeps launching start-up repair over and over. It says it is repairing files but it only takes a couple minutes and then it restarts my computer and it just keeps doing this over and over for hours. I have Windows 7.

I have my laptop automatically scheduled to run a defrag on a regular basis and I have not had any blue screens, crashes or mini-dumps (though my kids sometimes use my laptop and may not tell me that, so I will double check with them today).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get Windows to boot in Safe mode so that I can run some diagnostics and try to figure out what's wrong? I can access the system recovery menu, but I have some files on my laptop I don't want to lose, so I don't want to reset it to factory default settings unless absolutely necessary.

I sure would appreciate any help in getting my laptop to start running again. It has been running a bit slow the past week, but like I said it hadn't given me any serious problems.

I did try to run checkdisk from the recover menu (from the command screen prompt) but it wouldn't let me. I did run the memory diagnostic tool (one of the options you can access from the system recovery) but it said it didn't find anything.

 

[Cobalt006]

Shut the laptop down the do a startup and tap the f8 key, This should bring the safe mode menu up.

 

[mom26gr8kids]

The safe mode menu just keeps sending me into startup repair. Everything I click on sends me to the same screen over and over. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get the computer to boot or run a checkdisk.

 

[Tmagic650]

It is probably a failing or corrupt hard drive... Defragging is not necessary any longer and it causes a hard drive to ware out faster. I use a Seagate Disk check CD and I boot a computer from it, to run disk checks outside of Windows. It is possible that the hard drive has failed it's SMART status, and it has been tripped. If a disk check shows that the SMART status has been tripped, it will have to be replaced...
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/201951en
Here are the instructions. You will need to do this disk creation on a working computer