Windows 7 update hangs on - how data comes from?

Big problem here:

After my (anyway pretty small) hard drive was pretty full, I did the Disk Cleanup on Windows 7 (Professional, 64bit). There were you.a. The ability to delete old Windows Update information that is no longer needed. Since these alone had lapped to over 15 GB, I thought "Go for it!" (Unfortunately, without ever making a system backup before).

After that, the computer restarted, wrote "Updates are installed" counted up to 100% … And then passed EACHS NOTHING anymore. At some point I switch off and start again, then he drove up again with updates, up to 35% - that is probably a notorious problem according to Google (exactly at 35% he stops and hangs up), I've spent all night now, tried different, but still found no solution.

Now there are many programs and configurations on the computer, which I would like to use "just like that", that is, skip this stupid update loop, and well… But even in safe mode (no matter in which) comes again and again Update window, I have no chance, really times to come in the Windows logon… Only MANCHMAL (not reproducible), if I simply turned off the laptop, I come with F8 in various options of the system repair, where I have the opportunity have to get to the command line. There the attempt - as elsewhere described - to delete the pending.xml… Brought nothing nothing.

If anyone has any idea how to get back to Windows to make adjustments, please help!

If this is not possible, I can't help but re-install Windows on a fresh hard drive (or can I install it "over it" and get my data?) Have not got the Windows DVD at hand, otherwise I would have it already tried, but only 17 GB or so are available on the hard disk…)

But then it would be VERY IMPORTANT for me
1. Still come to the folder "Documents", which is under my user profile (Admin, but without password).
2. Can completely restore my Thunderbird profile (on the new installation) because there are many important mails stored locally in different e-mail accounts. (Especially the sent ones, because I can still load the received ones from the server, on which I left them for years).
3. I come to my very extensive collection of Firefox bookmarks.

… Everything else would be to get over, but I would need those 3 things again… The best, as I said, it would be first, if I could just skip this stupid update death loop, instead of reinstalling everything and start from scratch… Especially since this is actually my only calculator in the household (I'm now just about detours to another s.PC).

I'm grateful for any help!

I know the saying "who secures is cowardly" but I like to cowardly, I secure regularly weekly by Clonezilla Live CD my computer as an image backup on ext. USB hard drives, in such a case, the PC would be restored within half an hour.

Since you unfortunately do not have a backup I would like to try the following:

With the computer of a friend:

I would take out the hard drive with the interface SATA / USB as an external USB disk to another computer and plug me the "own files" times wegkopieren, so then the point "data loss" would be done.

With your calculator:

Have you ever tried to repair the system with an installation DVD with the repair mode? So start with this DVD (boot settings may change before) and then go into repair mode.

If your hard drive is too small anyway, then you can make a bigger one. They are not expensive anymore. Set it as a master disk and then reinstall your WINDOWS. For safety, you can disconnect the old plate beforehand (so as not to accidentally confuse the plates).

Then reconnect the old plate. Now you can transfer all important data from the old to the new disk. Then format the old plate. You can now use them as storage.

The backup can with a self-burned Linux live CD / DVD, such. B. Knoppix * be performed. - See, for example, B:

Download z. B: http://www.knoppix.org/

Then I would rebuild Win7 with SP1 and then upgrade to Win10 (free). Please refer:

Addendum: Download Win7 Pro with Sp1 - ISO: https://winfuture.de/...,3291.html

Another suggestion: Since your hard drive is already small, buy a 1TB hard drive and then reinstall your Win7.

If you then connect the old hard drive as a second hard drive, you can easily read them and copy to the new hard drive.
The use of Knoppix would then be unnecessary.

Check which function keys your Lappie comes after a cold start in the Windows 7 system repair, and then choose from the recovery point of time, long before the failed update.

Thank you for your good answers. For me, the problem has now resolved quite differently (facepalm)

But since this is actually a more common problem of the Windows update (that it freezes exactly at 35%) and there are several "solutions" circulating on the Internet, none of which worked for me, I just want to hold for posterity, as it in my case was:

The magic word is PATIENCE (and trust). By any bug or whatever, it seems to hang up at just 35%. Emphasis on SHEINT. At some point I just let the computer run, dedicated myself to other things, and when I got back to the room several hours later, Windows suddenly started up as normal as if nothing had ever happened.

So, whoever has this problem, really try not to lose patience after 20 minutes, not 30 or 40 minutes (in which nothing seems to happen and the update at 35% seems frozen), but just let the calculator times several hours (!) Make… Then everything was great again.

Very sensible - this tip will help others too.

According to the description of the FS, the cleaning recovery points have been deleted.