Windows 7: Win7 64, gigabyte mb. Won't start up anymore.

Hi,

I turned my com on the this morning and it got to the glowing windows symbol and it just hung.

i hard reset with the power button as its all i could do, and now it just keeps cycling through the initial startup screen and doesn't even get to the glowing windows symbol. In other words it shows the screen of my motherboard, then just cycles through to that again withouth getting any further.

Things ive tried so far:

changed the first boot order to cdrom and tried using windows installation disk aswell as an ubuntu disk - this did nothing and just kept cycling through again.

taken out all other usb connections so im only left with the keyboard.



Things which ive done differently on my computer recently:



pretty much nothing out of ordinary, however i did use ccleaner registry clean the time just before i shut it down last when it was working. although i use registry clean quite often.

Other notes/spec:

i7 920 (which is overclocked to 3.4, but i dont run it constantly in high performance)
computer is around 2 years old, i clean the graphics every couple of months from dust, and ive cleaned the cpu area and heat sink once, about 5 months ago, i re-applied the thermal paste.

Also for as long as i can remember, every time my com starts up, it makes some noise as if something is rattling or vibrating, this last for a min at the most and then goes back to the normal humming of the computer, but its never caused any problems.

many thanks and any help is appreciated

When you booted from the windows installation disk, what happened ?

nothing, i changed the boot order to cdrom. saved the settings with f10 and it just kept running through the same cycle again as if nothing had changed.

Does it sound like a corrupt hard drive or anything? cus thats my biggest concern due to date loss lol. I dont mind having to replace anything else

thanks

Put ubuntu live disk in the dvd rom and restart the computer. While starting up, press and hold F12 (as it is gigabyte ), upto it lists all the drives to boot from . Select DVD rom using the scroll arrow keys and hit enter . If it loads ubuntu ... very nice.

If it still loads nothing, we are to think differently .

Let us know what happened.

Ok thanks, i had an ubuntu studio but ill burn a live disk now and give it a shot.
ill let u know that happens
thanks again

Do you have any image backups?
Best way to be sure you don't loose any data, and good for situations like this.

Since you are posting we can assume you have another computer to try some recovery methods.
D/L the free version of Macrium Reflect, then make the bootable CD/USB Windows PE version and install it on a USB memory stick.

Try to boot it, if it still won't then disconnect the data cable on your HDD and boot from the Macrium USB stick.
This will tell us if the HDD is the problem, which would be the first thing I would check due to the noise you have been hearing.

Edit: Ubuntu live disk will do the same thing.

Still a good plan to use Macrium Reflect to backup image your HDD, you should save the backup to a different physical HDD in case your HDD ever fails you will still have the backup.

ok thanks ill give that a try too.

although i think the noise is more virbrating of something larger like a fan, im pretty sure its not the hdd.....lol i hope not anyway.

I just in the process of disconnecting ram,gpu, hdd etc and blasting it with some compressed air just to make sure its not that. after this ill try both of the above things

thanks again

hi again, after giving it a clean out, which ive done before many times, the problem seems to be worse, i now have no screen showing, computer is running, but not signal is being sent to the screen.

its a dvi to hdmi connection and the mother board has no onboard graphics card i assume since theres no alternative vga socket area.

gpu issue maybe?

Do you have , or can manage an alternative graphics card to check for ? A few months ago, I faced the same for my friends computer, which later detected as a dead onboard graphics.

annoyingly i dont no and dont know anyone who does. not too sure what to attempt now tbh.

its as if everything seems to be running ok tho, ive got the case open so i can see that gpu fan is running, as are all other fans.

wouldn't have anything to do with using the compressed air maybe? even though ive done that before

thanks