I have to attempt boot up several times to finally get the machine to stay on. It brings up a message that says it will repair itself, then shuts down again. After 5 to 7 attempts it finally starts the repair, but if left on it shuts down. The next time I reach this point I cancel the repair attempt and the machine finally does boot up. It suggested I ask for your help

Robert L. Mead, July 2012

Your hard drive looks like it's on the verge of total, final, failure.
It realy looks like there are bad blocks devloping all over the place, and this causes several files to become corrupt. Up to now, Windows still manage to successfully retreive safety copies, but those also risk becoming corrupted.

You MUST backup all your personal data from that drive. An external drive is great for that purpose.

Next, get a new hard drive and install it as the new primary drive. This means that you'll need to reinstall the OS from scratch. You'll also need to reinstall all your drivers and applications.

If you go for an SSD drive, also get a conventional drive for your data, temporary files and paging file. ONLY use the SSD for the OS, the drivers and applications, and move all voluminous files and frequently modified files to the regular drive. Also, you must NEVER defragment any SSD as it WILL severly affect it's durability.

Electro, July 2012