Windows 7: ASUS EEEPC 1005 startup repair loop-hardware issue?

Problem...
1 yr old (no physical damage) n450, 2gb ram, Win 7 netbook was stuck in startup repair loop. Would boot to safe mode, and safe mode w/ networking. Now after attempting an F9 factory system resore it gets to loading drivers, then fails, says it has to restart then fails again.



Things I've done...
System restore to several point-all successful, no change in problem
chkdsk- no problems
Windows memory diagnostic- no problems
Tried repairing with a full Win 7 disk in an ext DVD drive. Failed.
Windows

I'm thinking a hardware issue...but where do I start?

My wife LOVES this little machine, so any help is much appreciated!!

I would Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
HD Diagnostic

Thanks for the reply. Just to be sure, I changed back to original 1gb stick. No difference.

I'm going to try some hd check utilities run from the ext dvd drive, and see what's up.

In your opinion what is the best/easiest hd utility?

I used Seagate's hard drive diagnostic utility since that's the HD that's in it. Both short and long tests confirm a good hard drive.

RAM- eliminated
HD-eliminated

Any other ideas?

A suggestion for a general hardware diagnostic tool to go beyond RAM and HD?
In a desktop, I would just start pulling parts until I found the culprit, but I can't do that with a netbook.

Thanks for any help in advance...

What exactly are you able to do with the machine now? Can Windows start normally? In safe mode? Can you get to Advanced Boot Options?

Previously, I could boot to safe mode, or safe mode with networking. When I booted to windows normally, it would go into a startup repair loop. I tried a few things to fix that including repairing the registry hives (backed up first) but to no avail. Then I tried to do a clean install/ factory restore using the f9 option. Worked until it gets to the point of setting up hardware, then fails, and has to restart, in an endless loop.

Do you have a Windows 7 install disc or repair disc? It sounds like you need to do a full format to clean out bad sectors on the hard disk.

Also, did you create recovery discs before Windows crashed? It's possible your recovery partition is corrupted. If you do not have discs, you will have to order them from ASUS.

These netbooks don't have an optical drive, with these machines you must rebuild them from a restore partition or with an external USB interfaced CD/DVD drive, or from a USB memory stick (in fact you can build a complete Windows 7 installer onto a USB stick with a little patience).

It sounds like the thing may have become unbootable. However if you have kept the restore partition data you should be able to get at it using a bootable USB stick of some sort.

IMHO, and owning one of the Asus EEE variants, you must always keep an external bootable drive image on a USB device.

It'd be worth trying to check that the RAM is seated properly, as there's a slim possibility that could provoke a boot loop (it's under the HDD cover on the base).

Why would the recovery partition be bad? It started crashing before I touched the windows install. It's NOT the hard drive(tests of both the file system and hd health confirm), and it's NOT the RAM(switched out for original RAM confirm).

I had an old laptop with hardware issues once, would not allow windows to load it's drivers, reformatting crashed it at the driver installs. This sounds similar. I need a way(software?) to test the hardware components- or eliminate them one by one, which can't be done by unplugging parts like you could on a desktop.

PS I have an external DVD unit, and a Win 7 disk, but it's not for this computer.