Can games cause automatic repair?

[Willywonka1]

So i have HP spectre x360 with 16gb ram and ive been playing this game the whole summer and everything was fine and smooth. I was really close to finishing it and the game started lagging out of nowhere. I left the it for a while and couple of days ago i minimised the resolution and changed some settings and the game was running smoothly again, i was playing for a little bit and closed it to do my schoolwork and after probably 10 minutes my laptop completely crashed causing automatic repair which i couldnt do anything about and had to reset my whole laptop losing almost all my files.
Mind you that my laptop sometimes had issues where it would restart out of nowhere way before all of this, but never while playing the game.
I just wanna know is it safe for me to play any games after this? :'(

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@Willywonka1 

Not knowing WHY this happened, we have no idea if this will happen again -- so let make some suggestions of stuff you should do to protect yourself in advance.

First, buy a USB stick and back off all your classwork -- that way, you won't lose it again if you have to do another reset,

Second, seriously consider making an Image Backup of your setup.  This will give you something to restore FROM if you have to do a reset again -- more on this below.

Third, automatic repairs are most often caused by either failed Windows Update or filesystem corruption.  The second of these is most often caused by a failing drive and that can also cause the first -- but in a relatively new PC, you should not be having that issue.  So, I would check out the drive to rule that out:

If your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, to check the drive you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu
3) Press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

Fourth, this same issue can be caused by overheating and while modern laptops do tend to run hot because they have more powerful processors, thinner cases, and smaller fans, they should not run so hot that they crash.  If yours is seriously overheating and crashing, you need to contact HP Customer Support to see about getting it diagnosed and repaired under the warranty:

HP contact info: https://support.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp?openCLC=true

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I personally prefer to use third-party Backup solutions as they tend to be both more flexible and more reliable than any built-in solutions.

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore.

Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinRE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.

[Willywonka1]

@WAWood

Thank you so much! I have checked my drive ( C is my only drive) and there seems to be no issue, so i guess it was probably because of the failed windows update. I have backed up all of my most important files just in case. Now windows is asking me to update and i am not sure if i should do it.