Computer will not boot, produces little readable video output

juggerbot

Recently my computer has suffered some apparently catastrophic failure. A few weeks ago I used Norton Ghost to copy the image of my Velociraptor HDD boot drive to a Samsung 830 SSD. I wanted to rename my SSD into my C drive, but still keep the Velociraptor hooked up, but couldn't find a viable way to do that, so I just set the SSD as the primary boot drive in the BIOS in the meantime.

Today I was troubleshooting a Windows installer issue. I have been trying to move off of AVG antivirus into Security Essentials, but couldn't uninstall AVG. Later I couldn't update iTunes either (with a Windows Installer error message), so I figured Windows Installer was the problem in both issues. After a registry edit which was suggested as a Windows Installer fix (registry backed up beforehand), I still couldn't get the installs to go through. Then, while playing Skyrim, it froze. Could not get to the Task Manager, and it was completely unresponsive. I then tried to force restart, and check the Windows install with the Windows 7 disc. It found a problem it couldn't fix, and then when I restarted to try again the video output became extremely distorted. The motherboard splashscreen appears fine, but most everything else is unreadable.

I cannot boot to Windows, and when I tried the Ultimate Boot CD, the menu appears like this I even switched the boot drive from my SSD back to my HDD, which as far as I know has not even been used since the ghosting, but it still will not boot. I can't get into ExpressGate, the Asus operating system that came on the motherboard, as that screen is too distorted. I can get into the BIOS, and change its settings. Through that, I verified that heat was not unreasonably high.

In the last week or so, I was looking into a possible malware infection. Someone's Facebook account was hacked, and a spambot posted a link on a group that the account and I are members of, and I stupidly clicked it without reading. Since then, I have done AVG virus scans and Spybot scans, but AVG found nothing (Spybot always finds something, and I never read those reports in detail). The only other recent hardware change was a RAM upgrade a couple months ago, but I ran those through Memtest at installation with no issue.

I'm at wits end. I'm not really sure how to troubleshoot any further. I have tried Google, but haven't found anything useful yet, and I'm not even sure I'm searching with the right terms. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Specs:

Windows 7 Ultimate
ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601920
ASUS ENGTX285/HTDP/1GD3 GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
G.SKILL Sniper Gaming Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-12GBSR2
PC Power and Cooling PPCT860 860W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7
SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256D/AM 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Desktop Upgrade Kit
Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

TychoCelchuuu

Huh. Well, that weird picture is often evidence of video card failure, but that wouldn't explain anything else. What might explain the other stuff is a combination of a virus and troubles from swapping your installation from the one HD to the other. Do you have another video card you could test to see if you could get UBCD up and running?

ASimPerson

1. Try reseating (taking out and re-inserting) your video card. If that fails, try a different video card. If that fails, then try a different power supply, and if that fails, try a different motherboard.
2. If one of the above gets you the ability to read anything, try UBCD again. Ensure that the BIOS is trying to boot the CD or USB drive first (recommendation: burn the CD from a computer that is not possibly infected with malware).
3. If you can boot to UBCD, I believe it has a virus scanner on it. Run it.
4. If malware is not found, try booting the SSD again, but with the network disconnected. Try seeing if anything works. If you see odd or out of place dialog boxes, then you probably have a virus.
5. Removing a virus infection is a total pain the ass. I only did it with the help of this forum: http://www.techspot.com/community/forums/virus-and-malware-removal.28/ In retrospect, it was way more trouble than it was worth. Try getting your documents out via UBCD or something else Linux based (or just use your old known to be good hard drive) and start fresh.

juggerbot

Just a quick update:

I did finally manage to boot Windows in Safe Mode on the HDD C: drive. But the odd thing is, changes I had made on the SSD since the ghosting (desktop icons, Chrome tabs from last session) were all reflected on the C: drive. The only thing I did after the ghost was set the SSG G: drive as the primary boot drive. I didn't set up any backups through Ghost, so I have no idea why these changes are also on the C: drive. After work, I'll try out some of your hardware checks, but I have no spare parts lying around, so it can't be too comprehensive.

TychoCelchuuu

It sounds like your Windows install is fucked up six ways to Sunday. I'm still not sure why that would screw with the UBCD though.

juggerbot

I reseated the video card, replaced the DVI cable, tried another monitor, and tried the other port on my video card, with no change. I have no spare parts to try out.

The UBCD was indeed burned from a clean computer. I have also tried using the Windows 7 disk to reinstall, but no such menu to do so appears. If there is a point during startup when you must press a hotkey to bring up the menu to reinstall, then I can't read it.

I cannot boot into the SSD at all, I can only run a repair utility which doesn't help.

When booting to the HDD C drive, it boots to the Windows Boot Manager, where it gives me the following OS's to boot to:
Windows 7
Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008 / Windows 7

Selecting Advanced Boot Options (F8) on the second option brings up the menu of (paraphrased):

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Enable Boot Logging
Enable Low-Resolution
Last Known Good
Directory Services Restore Mode
Debugging Mode
Disable auto restart on failure
Disable Driver sig enforcement

Selecting it on the Windows 7 option brings up the same menu, but with an added "Repair mode" option, which can't fix any problem.

Interestingly, I can boot into both of these "installations" in safe mode, and files in both show themselves to be on the C: drive, but when I changed the password of one, it did not change the password on the other.

Also, the distortion doesn't appear to occur when booted into Safe Mode, only during startup.

juggerbot

Well, I formatted the SSD while in safe mode on the HDD installation. I booted up with the SSD as the only hard drive attached, and the display problems are still there. At this point, I'll assume it's a hardware issue, hopefully the video card. Since I have no spare parts to test with, I guess I'll have to take it in for testing. Thanks for your suggestions!