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PC has stopped booting into Windows
Steev
What can I do for you?Registered User regular
What can I do for you?Registered User regular
I built this PC a little over a year ago. It is normally located at my fiancee's apartment, which is about 300 miles away, and it usually only gets used for 2 weekends a month. After I had some problems with it last weekend, I decided to take it home to see if I could fix it.
Here's what's in it:
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 Motherboard
Radeon HD 5770
Intel i5-750
2 sticks of 2 GB G.SKILL memory
Seagate 1 TB hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
The problem:
The computer freezes up at the "Welcome to Windows" screen. That's the one where the little colored balls merge together to form the Windows logo. That still happens, then there's a noticeable flash on the screen, and the logo stops animating. Nothing happens after that, although the HD access light on my case continues to flash, although in no notable pattern. Sometimes it looks like it's accessing a large file, other times it flashes on and off for a while.
Things I have done:
First thing I did was use the Windows install disc to try and repair Windows. It didn't detect anything wrong with startup. I tried using a restore point from before the last installed Windows update, but it gave me an error.
I later rebooted it and tried safe mode, which worked fine. From here I tried a restore point again; this time it worked, and it loaded up into Windows 7 properly. Well, it took a few minutes for it to load up, but everything seemed normal.
I decided to reinstall the updates that had been undone by the restore point. I was relieved when the PC booted properly from that and thought everything was back to normal. However, the next day when I turned it on, the boot problem came back. I solved it by loading up the restore point again, but this is pretty much what happens anytime I try installing those updates.
I've run Windows disk error check utility. Unfortunately, I am never around when it finishes and it immediately tries booting into Windows, so I can't see the results. I've searched through Event Viewer to see the results, and have found other chkdsk logs, but can't seem to find the latest one.
I've run Memtest86 on both sticks of RAM for 12 hours each. No problems there.
Other things:
I started noticing over the last month or two that the PC didn't seem to wake gracefully from sleep mode. I would turn it on and it would show the desktop, but it would take forever to get to a point where I could do anything. Sometimes it would even reboot.
I'm starting to suspect it's a hard drive problem. Anyone have any ideas? Even though I've built a few PCs, I still feel like an idiot when trying to figure out problems. I'm dreading a Windows reinstall, but I have a feeling that may be what I need to do.
Here's what's in it:
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 Motherboard
Radeon HD 5770
Intel i5-750
2 sticks of 2 GB G.SKILL memory
Seagate 1 TB hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
The problem:
The computer freezes up at the "Welcome to Windows" screen. That's the one where the little colored balls merge together to form the Windows logo. That still happens, then there's a noticeable flash on the screen, and the logo stops animating. Nothing happens after that, although the HD access light on my case continues to flash, although in no notable pattern. Sometimes it looks like it's accessing a large file, other times it flashes on and off for a while.
Things I have done:
First thing I did was use the Windows install disc to try and repair Windows. It didn't detect anything wrong with startup. I tried using a restore point from before the last installed Windows update, but it gave me an error.
I later rebooted it and tried safe mode, which worked fine. From here I tried a restore point again; this time it worked, and it loaded up into Windows 7 properly. Well, it took a few minutes for it to load up, but everything seemed normal.
I decided to reinstall the updates that had been undone by the restore point. I was relieved when the PC booted properly from that and thought everything was back to normal. However, the next day when I turned it on, the boot problem came back. I solved it by loading up the restore point again, but this is pretty much what happens anytime I try installing those updates.
I've run Windows disk error check utility. Unfortunately, I am never around when it finishes and it immediately tries booting into Windows, so I can't see the results. I've searched through Event Viewer to see the results, and have found other chkdsk logs, but can't seem to find the latest one.
I've run Memtest86 on both sticks of RAM for 12 hours each. No problems there.
Other things:
I started noticing over the last month or two that the PC didn't seem to wake gracefully from sleep mode. I would turn it on and it would show the desktop, but it would take forever to get to a point where I could do anything. Sometimes it would even reboot.
I'm starting to suspect it's a hard drive problem. Anyone have any ideas? Even though I've built a few PCs, I still feel like an idiot when trying to figure out problems. I'm dreading a Windows reinstall, but I have a feeling that may be what I need to do.
Steev on
0
Posts
Though you have tried falling back to the restore point (to whichever point that may be), try booting into safe mode, uninstall your video drivers and reboot.
Have you updated any drivers lately? (Maybe updating caused a problem, who knows)
Though this issue might not be a driver thing, whenever I saw the freeze at the "Welcome to Windows" mode, it was always a video driver issue.
if you need to backup any data from the hard drive you can use any live linux cd.
I actually had uninstalled the video drivers after the problem started and installed new ones, but the problem came back after a reboot or two. I forgot about that and failed to mention it in the OP.
I decided to do a mini-upgrade and buy a solid state drive which will be here Wednesday. I'll put Windows 7 on there. I intend not to format the original HD and use it as my data drive. Anything I should know about deleting the Windows install on there? Or is it advisable just to reformat it?
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