Windows hanging after windows loading screen

I just recently installed a Samsung 830 SSD to my Gigabyte Ga-EP45-UD3R mobo. I have a q9550 cpu with 4gb of ram and a 9800GTX+ video card. I was recently running 1 mechanical drive, a WD caviar black 640gb.

I recently wanted to get more speed so I ordered that SSD and installed windows on it. I left the mechanical unplugged until it was all done being installed. I then installed some updates and turned the computer off. I plugged the mechanical drive back in and the windows loading screen came on, the screen then went black and just hangs there. The keyboard is unresponsive meaning the num lock caps lock lights do not illuminate or go off when being pressed. Then after about 2 minutes or so it just activates and all is well.

All the drivers are installed I believe, what could this be?



So now that my graphics drivers were installed the screen turns off. When I boot into safe mode the visuals look fine and it brings me to the home screen, however my usb keyboard goes inactive for about 50 seconds. The screen however continues like the search help cursor is still blinking.

It must be something to do with the Intel southbridge. I just threw the mechanical drive to the third party chipset and it runs better now

Is the previous installation of W7 still on the spinner?
The system may be choking on startup sorting out which OS to boot from. You can correct such a problem by using Diskpart to remove the ACTIVE flag from the C: partition on the spinner.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

No the OS is not installed on the spinning drive.

When I changed my spinning drive to the third party controller it works better and doesn't do the hang up

A good work-around but not a solution.

Can you post a screenshot of the Disk Management window that shows both drives?
Is you SATA configuration in the BIOS set to AHCI, or IDE mode?
How many SATA connected drives do you have including optical?

TVeblen said:

A good work-around but not a solution.

Can you post a screenshot of the Disk Management window that shows both drives?
Is you SATA configuration in the BIOS set to AHCI, or IDE mode?
How many SATA connected drives do you have including optical?

Click to expand...

Exactly, it's annoying having to go through 3 bios screens now.

I can do that, sure.

The SATA config is set to AHCI

I have three SATA drives now. I have a DVD optical drive, The samsung 830 and the WD caviar black. Does order of SATA ports matter? Like lets say the DVD drive is in the first port and then the 830 is in port 3 and the Black is in 5.

Sorry to butt in but apparently what TVeblen said at post 2 about your previous Windows 7 installation is correct!

TVeblen said:

Is the previous installation of W7 still on the spinner?
The system may be choking on startup sorting out which OS to boot from. You can correct such a problem by using Diskpart to remove the ACTIVE flag from the C: partition on the spinner.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Click to expand...

The Disk Management screen shows both your drives having System reserved partitions, both set to active.

Disk 0 = your SSD where you're now running your Windows 7 installation from. This one should have the active system reserved partition

Disk 1 = your previous spinner which still has that 100 MB System Reserved partition that is active. This one should NOT have any active partitions.

In other words, your spinner which is Disk 1 on the disk management screen is still trying to take control during the startup process causing the symptoms you've mentioned earlier!

Follow the tutorial TVeblen posted earlier and deactivate partition E to make it inactive

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

solarmystic said:

Sorry to butt in but apparently what TVeblen said at post 2 about your previous Windows 7 installation is correct!

TVeblen said:

Is the previous installation of W7 still on the spinner?
The system may be choking on startup sorting out which OS to boot from. You can correct such a problem by using Diskpart to remove the ACTIVE flag from the C: partition on the spinner.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Click to expand...

The Disk Management screen shows both your drives having System reserved partitions, both set to active.

In other words, your spinner which is Disk 1 on the disk management screen is still trying to take control during the startup process causing the symptoms you've mentioned earlier!

Follow the tutorial TVeblen posted earlier and deactivate partition E to make it inactive

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Click to expand...

You know I saw that and wondered if that could be it. I just wanted to be sure. After this could I/ Should I switch it back to the intel controller?

If it simplies your startup process, go for it. You did mention the inconvinience of having to go through those BIOS screens earlier on just to get that working...

solarmystic said:

If it simplies your startup process, go for it. You did mention the inconvinience of having to go through those BIOS screens earlier on just to get that working...

Click to expand...

I am going to try it.


Also something else seems up with my bootup, when I am at the windows loadup screen it kind of hiccups a bit and then my usb keyboard flashes and cd rom drive searches then it boots up into windows. I wonder if this could fix it aswell.

Hmm.. I'm not sure about that bit..

What I do recall however, is that when Windows starts up, the BIOS hands over control of all USB, Bluetooth and Networking devices to Windows 7, which causes them to be disconnected from the system for a split second and reconnected once again.

Perhaps TVeblen could shed some light on that issue when he returns..

alright, Thanks a lot. I hope that solved my hanging issue on my intel chipset. I still have to try that.

Hey, I'm back. Nice day outside today!
Thanks Solarmystic for helping in the thread!

After you have removed that active flag from the System reserved partition on the spinner, then connect the drive as normal to the Intel SATA port. I'll bet you will not have any further issue there.

There is no hierarchy to SATA ports. Any one is just the same as the others. The SATA controller only sees individual drives.

For good measure, I would delete that System Reserved partition on the spinner also. It is no longer needed and could cause further problems.

As for your other observation, I will guess that the boot order in your BIOS settings is to boot from the optical drive and USB before the hard drive. While this can be of benefit in some situations (like booting from diagnostic programs on DVD or USB) it is not always necessary and relatively easy to change when needed.)
Change the boot order to boot from hard drive first and I bet you will see that little glitch go away.

Hope that helps.

Well I just want to give you an update. The startup is increadibly slow. I still have the drives on two controllers. But it just got progressively worse. A spinner drive would have been faster. I am beginning to think that AHCI is not really needed.

The AHCI setting will have nothing to do with your problem. The IDE/AHCI thing has it's own unique set of issues.

Can you tell us what you have done? As far as following our suggestions, that is.
(3, so far).

TVeblen said:

The AHCI setting will have nothing to do with your problem. The IDE/AHCI thing has it's own unique set of issues.

Can you tell us what you have done? As far as following our suggestions, that is.
(3, so far).

Click to expand...

Well I have switched it to the intel chipset. It runs better but something is still messing it up on bootup. But maybe I am just expecting too much from it.

Another problem I have is within Itunes...but I think its just the program itself not the hardware.

Give this a try:

First, make sure that you have deleted the 100MB System Reserved partition on the spinner. In Disk Management it should show as unallocated space.
And we assume that you have already removed the ACTIVE flag from that drive/partition also.
With those two things confirmed, leave the drive connected.

Then, from your W7 installation DVD, run Startup Repair. You may need to run it 3 times to correct all problems if they exist.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html (use Option 2)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

See if that helps.