Windows won't boot... or reinstall

[Feronix]

In fact, it won't do anything.

Right, so around 3 months ago I built my sister a decent system with a Haswell i3 on some ASRock motherboard (B85), 4GB Kingston Fury RAM and a WD Caviar Blue. Cause my dad couldn't be arsed to make an ethernet cable go up to her room (attic) I also threw in a WDN-4800.

Friday she said that Windows would suddenly no longer start up because of a hardware change. I found this weird so I took a look and upon starting the PC I was greeted with this screen:

Tried both options (obviously) but:
Repair: It starts "Loading Windows Files" which it does within 2 seconds. Then the screen goes black and after a few minutes a cursor appears that I can move around. But then nothing happens.
Normally: We get the neat little Windows 7 boot animation, then again the screen just goes black and after a few minutes the computer reboots itself only to end up at the same screen as in the first image.

I booted into the Bios and set everything back to defaults (even tried a few other things) but none of that seemed to help at all.

I then started mashing F8 while booting to get this, slightly longer, list of boot options.

None of these seemed to help. I cannot even boot into safe mode, however when I do pick any of the safe mode options it does get stuck at this point:

I Googled that for a bit but all of the solutions seem to require you to boot into Windows, for example to do registry edits and such. Thing is; we can't get anywhere near the OS itself.



After about two hours of staring at black screens I decided to re install Windows. Was planning to install a new version on top of it, allow her to boot into that to back up her files and then format the entire drive and start fresh.

All she had however, was a Windows 7 disc and we didn't not have a 4GB+ USB lying around to move the files onto that so disc it was. But her computer does not have a DVD burner. No biggy, I've got an external USB one for cases exactly like this.

Put the DVD in the external drive and plugged it into the computer. Booted into the bios and set the DVD drive as Boot Priority #1 and just to be sure I removed the DVD from the boot list entirely for the time being (picked the 'None' option for boot option #2).

Did the whole "Windows is loading files" thing again, this time reading them off the DVD so taking a good 30 seconds to do so. Then the screen went black again....


So basically; I cannot boot into the current OS install, but I can't install a new one either. What the fuck is going on?

Any help would be much appreciated cause honestly the best thing I can come up with right now is buying a new HDD and start fresh... Is the HDD maybe simply broken?


Thanks in advance guys!

 

[barnsley]

Get a hdd caddy and plug it into your pc? That way you can see if the HDD is a dudd/format it.

 

[kilobravo]

Have you tried another satacable/port?
It get this error when òc`ing memory,maybe faulty dimm?

 

[Feronix]

Well, I know for sure that it's not 100% dead cause the Bios recognizes it and it still loads /some/ Windows files. Maybe just a bad cluster? The funny thing is that apparently this issue happened to multiple other people and the solutions are all hit & miss.

Worth a shot though I guess. Still have a spare Sata power connector in my ITX build and a couple spare data cables in 'the stash'. Might do that tomorrow if there are no other solutions.

Edit;

Have you tried another satacable/port?
It get this error when òc`ing memory,maybe faulty dimm?

Tried a different RAM dimm from my back up PC, didn't help. Tried another Sata cable, didn't help. Did not try another Sata port but it's port 0 so surely that should work.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

I would do a complete HDD format (with error checking)
Also the issue could be caused by the motherboard.. (asrock's low end mobos are *not reliable*)

 

[kilobravo]

Can win7 disc load,if so try the option "repair Windows".
Maybe a bad cluster at MBR.

 

[Feronix]

I would do a complete HDD format (with error checking)
Also the issue could be caused by the motherboard.. (asrock's low end mobos are *not reliable*)

Can't format the HDD if I can't access it though. Only if I hook it up to another computer I guess.

Can win7 disc load,if so try the option "repair Windows".
Maybe a bad cluster at MBR.

Nope, just "Loads Windows Files" and then goes to a black screen and the installation screen never even pops up.

 

[Wraith]

Do you have a copy of Hirens boot diagnostics? Boot from that and log into mini XP you can do your snooping around the system from there. Even perform registry repairs.

 

[shambles1980]

had a simmilar issue. 7 wouldnt boot, ciouldnt repair, couldnt use a back up image..
could not see the hard disks for reinstalling windows, could not do anything. this was after a raid error..

I fixed it "well worked arround" by using windows 8 trial install.. (udf boot) "also dissabled raid and went to ahci"
windows 8 could see all the drives and i was able to install it to my cache drive which became my main os drive..
You can then restart the windows 8 install and format the os drive (so its not udf boot) exit the installer.
and then windows 7 can see it again..

Dont ask me why it happened. or why windows 7 couldnt see any of my SATA drives even the ones smaller than 2tb.
and it was nothing to do with udf boot in bios either "although you may want to check that"

hope that helps some.

 

[Kushiro]

Feronix, it might sound stupid, but is fast boot enabled in the bios?

 

[Feronix]

Just thought of this btw, and I know the chance is very very small, but what if she somehow managed to download some kind of virus? They can mess with Windows files pretty bad and if this is the case, plugging the drive into my own PC with €200 of storage options is not really something I'd want to do.

Do you have a copy of Hirens boot diagnostics? Boot from that and log into mini XP you can do your snooping around the system from there. Even perform registry repairs.

Hmm, never heard of that tbh. Might give it a shot but the thing I'm finding so very odd is that it won't let me reinstall Windows either. That would simply indicate a broken hard drive, wouldn't it?

had a simmilar issue. 7 wouldnt boot, ciouldnt repair, couldnt use a back up image..
could not see the hard disks for reinstalling windows, could not do anything. this was after a raid error..

I fixed it "well worked arround" by using windows 8 trial install.. (udf boot) "also dissabled raid and went to ahci"
windows 8 could see all the drives and i was able to install it to my cache drive which became my main os drive..
You can then restart the windows 8 install and format the os drive (so its not udf boot) exit the installer.
and then windows 7 can see it again..

Dont ask me why it happened. or why windows 7 couldnt see any of my SATA drives even the ones smaller than 2tb.
and it was nothing to do with udf boot in bios either "although you may want to check that"

hope that helps some.

It's not that I can't see the hard disk from the install screen. It's that the install screen remains black and nothing ever even loads. Could this have something to do with the fact that I'm using a USB DVD drive? Would an actual bootable USB be any different?

Guess I could try tossing another Windows version on there. Is the Windows 10 beta still available?

Feronix, it might sound stupid, but is fast boot enabled in the bios?

I think it is right now, but I turned it off when I was trouble shooting. Why?

 

[Kushiro]

No reason in particular, its just that I have read many people having boot problems with this enabled. Probably something not initializing properly. so I though I may as well cross something off the list

 

[Feronix]

No reason in particular, its just that I have read many people having boot problems with this enabled. Probably something not initializing properly. so I though I may as well cross something off the list

Ah alright, thanks for the suggestion anyway

 

[Greenback]

Ok I know you probably checked everything, but just a thought have you checked nothing has come lose, a mate had a system that wouldn't boot after trying all sort I just unplugged everything and redid it and it worked fine so I don't know if it was a lose cable gpu or something

 

[Feronix]

Ok I know you probably checked everything, but just a thought have you checked nothing has come lose, a mate had a system that wouldn't boot after trying all sort I just unplugged everything and redid it and it worked fine so I don't know if it was a lose cable gpu or something

Yep, checked all, and even replugged some of the cables when I swapped out the RAM as well.

 

[MadShadow]

 

[Kushiro]

Not sure if you already did this, but have you checked the processor or basically had the PC boot with the bare minimum components installed? Could also try completely draining all the capacitors etc and then boot cold, not sure if it would help though.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

You could create a live disk with Ubuntu then format your drive.
If you are afraid of a virus you could try a resque drive (CD or USB ))) I personally prefer Karspersky

 

[Wraith]

Hmm, never heard of that tbh. Might give it a shot but the thing I'm finding so very odd is that it won't let me reinstall Windows either. That would simply indicate a broken hard drive, wouldn't it?

It's one tool every enthusiast should have in there arsenal Hirens 15.2 is the latest, just download and burn to disk.

 

[shambles1980]

i know that windows 7 had a black screen issue with some gpu's at release time.
and the only way you could fix it was to use a auto unattended method.
that was with i think hd 5770 cards (could have been more)
i know i had to have a usb with auto unatend set up to install 7 on one of my systems.

But that would not explain the rest of the symptoms.