WIN7 Crashes & reboot on startup - how to monitor/track what is wrong

ibex · 17 Jun 2012

My wife's PC refused to reboot about a week ago and after many attempts we eventually gave up trying to recover it and reinstalled from scratch. The history of that is over here. WIN7 won't boot. What should I do before trying a clean install?

The PC was rebuilt with WIN7 64 OEM and because my system disk is only 80GB I followed the directions from this post to locate the user and user apps data folders on the other disk. User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

Windows update has now installed over 150 updates including SP1 and rebooted successfully many times along the way.

However this morning at powerup the PC crashed back to black and rebooted twice before successfully starting up. It has now run quite happily all day.

What should I do to monitor what is happening and capture as much info as possible so that if this happens again I capture what is going wrong?

usasma · 17 Jun 2012

Set a System Restore point immediately!
Create a System Repair disc (if your installation DVD can't get you into Startup Repair). To do this, go to Start...All Programs...Maintenance...Create a System Repair Disc
Scan for malware (rootkits such as TDSS can survive a format)

Then, update all drivers from the Gigabyte website (and any other devices/programs that you may have installed).

Black screen errors are extremely difficult to repair. At work we no longer even try any detailed fixes (we've wasted weeks trying fixes only to end up wiping them in the end). We try System Restore, updating drivers, and scanning for malware. If none of that works, then we wipe it and reinstall Windows.

Good Luck!

ibex · 18 Jun 2012

usasma said:

1. Set a System Restore point immediately!
2. Create a System Repair disc (if your installation DVD can't get you into Startup Repair). To do this, go to Start...All Programs...Maintenance...Create a System Repair Disc
3. Scan for malware (rootkits such as TDSS can survive a format)

4. Then, update all drivers from the Gigabyte website (and any other devices/programs that you may have installed).

...

Good Luck!

1 & 2 have been done. I created the repair disk a couple of days ago once I had the rebuild complete. I have also created another disc image from within Windows and put it aside.
3. Is Windows Defender Offline the right tool for this?

usasma · 18 Jun 2012

Try a couple of different scans (at least 2 clean scans will assure you that the system isn't infected). I've got a list of some of the free one's here: Free Online AntiMalware Resources

Be careful about scanning and deleting System Restore points. At one point this was mandatory - but it was found that people couldn't restore their computers if they needed to. Sometimes restoring to an infected state is easier to work on than not being able to restore at all. Infected restore points need to be deleted, but only after the system has been cleaned and is stable.

I am not a malware removal expert. I achieve limited success by using a "scorched earth" policy - I run as many malware scans as I can get my hands on.

And, don't forget that malware can damage your files and registry settings - so even though you're no longer infected, the system may still not work right.