I just recently installed a fresh new installatoin of Windows 7 x64 bit on my computer. When I started up for the first time I let Windows do its thing such as installing drivers for hardware, Windows Update, etc. Now when I restart my computer so that the updates can be in effect, the computer starts up and everything but then it hangs at the "Starting Windows" screen. You just see those words but no Windows logo or anything.
One day I just left it there for a couple of hours and when I come back I still see screen with "Starting Windows" but no logo.
You likely saw a bad install of either an update or other startup item. The thing to do now is boot up in safe mode by pressing F8 just as the post tests are ending and go through the msconfig utility's startup tab as well as going into Control Panel>Programs & Features and selecting the show hidden updates option to go through the list in order to find out where the hang up is.
The other possible outcome was seeing a bad install of Windows to begin with. That can happen where you then have to perform an entire new clean install to set things right.
Try disabling or uninstalling a few items like any video or sound updates seen as optional in MS updates. Often a hardware driver will tend to cause locks when it starts loading sideways.
A Clean Boot would also be an idea - if Windows boots.
With one time instances of a driver hangup a full restart will often see a normal resume until the desktop is reached. With a problematic bad install of something repeat hangs often need to see the item removed and then reinstalled fresh for a normal result.
A bad install of Windows while usually seen when bad ram or worn drive heads is apparent can still occur when no hardware faults are present. Generally when that happens however you may still see the normal desktop but everything ends up having problems.
The solution now is simply to isolate items one at a time if the problem persists in order to rule or confirm where the problem is being seen such as a flaky driver typically a problem or a need to remove one of the updates that may well have seen a bad install. When you are not sure just what is the offender booting up in safe mode to disable startups and remove a few updates as well as device drivers will usually find the source once you see a normall boot that.
Something is causing Windows to hang which does suggest a 3rd party item as the likely item to find there. Drivers for addon devices as well as those for video cards can be a royal pain at times if one loads with Windows and that went on bad. It's always a step by step process especially when you first load up a fresh install of Windows with a number of items all at the same time.
If Safe Mode runs without hang-ups, its not 7's fault, the core drivers are fine. I'd run Memtest86+ and a hard drive diagnostic boot cd.
I have installed different versions of Windows multiple times throughout the last couple of days. I tried installing Vista x32 and x64. After the completion of the installation, the installer will automatically restart your computer. Now when my computer restarts, it will hang at a screen with a little dash blinking several times per second in the top left corner. Now when I try to install XP, you know the part where it says "Setup is analyzing your hardware configuration" or something similar to that, after about 30sec, my computer just restarts.
Can someone please advice how I would go about trying to find the root of the problem step by step?
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