It better and more effective to use disk imaging and create an image there are plenty of free ones like reflect Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free
Welcome to the forum. What happens when you try and run ie error message and how do you run them? Have you tried right click on the file and setting it compatable with an old o/s?
Being asus it will have a built in recover parition you have to hit f9 the second the screen lights you have to be very quick as it will resume if your not quick enoughtsee How to restore ASUS laptop to factory settings - YouTube
I wonder what apps you have one app sky news when you goto add remove it caches 12 gig of space worth checking when you click on it it tells you the cache and you can delete it other apps may be doing the same
If the hd is corupy then that would do it and if it did work you wouldnt know what files are corrupt just download the iso and do a clean install
Download Windows 8.1
See if the new official of firefox solves the problem out on the 14th any beta is dodge its there to test and find bugs the bestfree bomb proof cleaner is Download Free UnCleaner, UnCleaner 1.0 Download