I'm hoping some very smart people out there can help me with an issue I've been having. The Story: A few days ago I was forced to do a windows update for my Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. After going through the installation successfully my computer shut down and restarted - nothing out of the ordinary. On reboot however, Windows got stuck on the 'Starting Windows' screen - I waited for over an hour - just as a precaution. No luck. I did a reboot without changing settings - same problem. I tried LCGK and that hung on the same screen too. I then went to repair - Windows Restore said that there were problems with Windows 7 so I ran the restoration process. It was 'unable to fix the problem'. After doing numerous other things, which I thought might work but failed, I decided to get a new hard drive and I reinstalled on the fresh new drive. It worked - I was able to get to my desktop and I started to set it up (i.e download a decent browser, updated drivers so i could run at my native resolution etc.) I tried to access some of my user files from my previous drive, however, as expected access was denied despite me using administrator privileges (green bar on top got stuck before the end) I waited for an hour - just being all patient just in case. No luck, so I cancelled that and decided I'd fix the problem later today when I had more time so I turned off my computer. Later that day I booted the new drive and to my astonishment I had the same freaking problem which I had on a completely different drive - I made sure I was loading the right drive and it wasn't making sense - I was booting the one I wanted without any luck. So I'm stuck and I'm forced to come on Uber forums for some assistance from some smart community folks. I know there could be a problem with the boot manager itself, but I don't understand why, if this was the case, why does it get as far as the 'Starting Windows' screen. My last resort would be to get a pro to fix it for me, but I run the risk of losing my data since there are no guarantees. Whoever can help me fix this will get my eternal gratitude! P.S: Please don't link me to any microsoft support threads since I've read most of them (unless of course you think you know my exact problem can be fixed in the thread you link me). System Specs: (doubt they'd be useful but may as well). CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad: Q9450 Graphics: Asus Nvidia GTX 580 Mobo: Striker II Formula 8GB DDR2 Ram
I had a similar issue once except that it didn't get stuck on the loading screen, instead it would reboot after a few seconds of running the Windows loading screen. I fixed it by switching the SATA driver from IDE to AHCI or vise versa, can't remember which way it was. I read that IDE to AHCI switch may require a re-installation of Windows so in case you wanna try this one you should look up the specifics. But I don't know if this makes any sense. It could be a hardware issue.
what are your priority? 1-Save your data? 2-Have a running computer? 1-If you need your data, then stop playing with the HDD that have your information. If it has any kind of failure (mechanic or logical), use it as less as possible, and never use it as a booting drive. If you can, use the drive on another computer as a secondary HDD. Unless you encrypted your HDD, there shouldn't be any problem with permissions, any administrator can bypass NTFS security unless the data is encrypted. Then use any free recovery software to recover your data. There are some of them that are good adn free for home use (Recuva, Easeus, and others). Never recover data on the same HDD, recover it to another disk. Once recovered the info, you can scan the disk for sector failures and such. If everything is ok then it's a software problem. 2- Poiuasd gave you a very valid point, sometimes the IDE/AHCI settings can make these symptoms. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1634729/boot-switching-driver-ahci-windows.html http://superuser.com/questions/198778/stuck-at-starting-windows-when-switching-to-ahci-mode Reinstallation is not really required, but changing from Windows setting from IDE to AHCI can be tricky if you can't boot. What you need is the repair disk, and load your registry offline: http://mattterrabyte.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/modify-windows-registry-startup-repair/ Once you connected to the registry, enable AHCI services: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\pciide Both to zero, and reboot. I suppose you tried safe mode (F8 at start then safe mode). If it hangs on any driver you can have a clue about what's wrong. If it starts then it's 100% a driver issue (uninstall the antivirus, and try without it). If it still fails, then it's a PITA to identify the problem. Check for memory problems, check for virus (with a bootable antivirus), remove peripherals (even your graphics card if you have one on motheboard), try to start with the bare minimal stuff (1 memory module, 1 HDD, keyboard, monitor, everything else detached).
I just wiped my new hard drive and did a full reinstall of windows with my other HDDs unplugged so it would install the boot loader on my new one - works a treat and restarts and everything. All I have to do now is plug in my other HDD to get some files copied. I hope there won't be problems with permissions etc.
Any chance you have an external USB hard drive attached? When I have a certain USB hard drive attached to my computer it hangs at the Windows load splash screen. Unplug the hard drive and it finishes loading. Probably not the same problem but you never know.
