Windows 7: PC freezing after system recovery

Hey there, the PC is a windows 7 home premium 64bit emachines tower. I purchased the tower at wally world for $400 which I thought was a good deal since i already had a monitor and other components.

Now to the fun stuff. I stopped using this PC for a while and let my nephew and his friends play with it. What they did I'm unsure, but the case is that it would freeze and stuff. Some how I managed to back up all the files and after that it kept freezing. Gave up on it then a few days later I turned it on to attempt to restore it to a previous restore point that I had made almost when i bought it. Luckily, it went smoothly and the PC was working fine. I then decided to start from a fresh start, so I typed in recovery and was able to restore my PC to factory settings, so I did that (yesterday and it was working fine).

Today I turned on the PC with the intentions of importing some old files that I had on a external hard drive and I got an error. I was prompeted if I wanted to repair which was recommended or start windows normally. I hit repair and 10 sec after the screen went Clear. I was confused, so I waited a while and nothing. I then forced shut down the tower by holding down the power button and gave it another go and the same thing happend. I then tried the "start windows normally" option and it froze on the part when it says, "starting windows."

I'm now stuck and not sure if the hard drive is shot or not. I searched and saw that some people suggest to insert the wn 7 operating system disc and boot from it and make a new partition, but I'm not quite sure how to boot from the disc. When I hit the F12 key when the PC starts I get these options below as shown on the pic. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hit arrow keys to select DVDRAM and press enter. Follow the prompts to repair Windows.

If you get it up and running, best to perform a deep scan for possible infections, regardless of whether or not you have re-installed Windows. Do you have malware (antivirus) software? If not, see if you can download the excellent free Malwarebytes. Install, let it update itself, then run a full scan.

I tried that and it turned to that clear screen after mike 10 sec.

If you're running the original emachine factory preinstall that is a corrupt bloated install which throttles Win7 native performance. Best to wipe the HD to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 using the installer provided for your licensed version, activated with the Product Key on the COA sticker on machine.

During booted Custom install be sure to delete all partitions using Drive Options shown in Steps 6/7 of Clean Install Windows 7 to create new partition(s) as you wish, format and begin install.

If you'd rather try repairing the current Win7 use the DVD provided in Step 5 of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start to run Startup Repair a few times to see what it finds. Everything else that can be done to start unbootable Win7 is also there including how to rescue your files to do the reinstall.

Forgive my asking but are you certain the Windows setup disc was inserted? Have you had any trouble with the CD/DVD drive? Can you hear the drive spin when you try booting from the setup disc?

Sure feels like a hardware problem. You might try re-seating the memory module(s)... remove/ re-insert repeatedly, to help clean the contacts. But if the system refuses to boot from optical or HDD, you may need to create a bootable drive on a memory card (using another computer of course). This is typically done using a USB thumb drive but you'd need to know if your system can boot from USB. There may be an option for USB further down on the list shown in your first image.

Thanks for that. I'd rather wipe the hard drive and start fresh. Had a few questions since I'm not quite comfortable.

I was going over the thread, "Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7" Since I have Windows 7 home premium 64 bit includes service pack 1 anytime upgrade disc, do I skip steps 1 and 2? Prior to the state that I am now, I had saved my files on a external hard drive, so I skip step 3 aswell, right?

As far as step 4, I'm assuming I still have to do that since the only disc's I have for the emachines et1331g-03w is the windows 7 home premium SP164 and 32bit (two discs) which I had aquired from microsoft for $15. Appreciate your time. thanks

The day before I got this error which was when I did the system restore the dvd/cd rom was working properly. Even when I had done the recovery option right after the system restore the PC loaded up fine and the DVD/CD rom was still working. As far as it working right now, I believe it is since I hear it when I insert the disc, but I need to double check. As far as the USB boot option, I elieve it has that aswell, but i need to double check. Thanks for the feedback guys.

After a few attempts and curse words, the PC decided to boot off the Win 7 DVD and I hit "repair" and it went through the process and is now working. This isn't the method I wanted to go with since the beginning, but it'll work. I will definitly keep this thread on the look out in the fure for when I'm ready to wipe everything out and start from a clean hard drive. one more question, how's IE8 working out for you guys? I've thought of updating it to IE9 is it worth it or should I stick with IE8? Thanks alot!

Use the latest version of IE9 which is fine and is required for secure browsing. It will be pushed through with Important and Optional Windows Updates, all of which should be installed to have Win7 optimum performance. Set Updates to Automatic, accept Recommended like Important in the settings.

Ok, great. I did set it to download automatically, but do not update since I like to see what is going to be updated before it updates.

If I choose the automatic which is recommended, will the option updates download/update aswell? I'm assuming not, but just want to make sure.