New
#1
Crash on startup (even safe mode) + repair operations failed to help
Sadly my laptop recently stopped being usable and it's hard for me to tell if it's a hardware or software problem. If anyone could help me figure that out and possibly fix it I would be very thankful. I had the laptop recently fall hard to the ground and was so relieved the screen was still good + hard drive good + it ran good up until the next time I hibernated it and then tried to take it out of hibernation. My memory is bad, but I think between that time I installed one or two free utilities related to computer temperature monitoring. While Windows fails to boot, the Windows repair UI's have ran without crashing and I was able to run Linux fine from a USB stick. My hope is that maybe one of those programs installed a driver that is causing the failed boots and it isn't hardware.
I'm good with computers, but not an IT professional or person familiar with the details of what happens in the background with things like using the last known working configuration option, startup repair operations, and safe mode. I'm fuzzy on the memory, but I think I remember in the past I had a flawed software (not related to hardware, just functionality added from driver) only driver installed that even tried to load when I did safe mode.
I did the F8 startup option to prevent auto-rebooting hoping the blue screen would have useful information like a particular driver causing the crash, but it was extremely minimal. I don't have it handy, but it was something like 4 very long 64bit hexidecimal numbers relating to an error code. If anyone can tell me how or point me to good info how to get extended details about the crash, I could do that.
Anyone know what the chances are a flawed driver from a temperature monitoring app could still be loading in my case? Also if that's the issue, I could use tips how to prevent it from loading with only being able to get as far as a repair command prompt. Maybe I could delete the particular driver file from the right location(s) if that's the issue and just cause it to skip loading that?
I hadn't looked much yet for what free software to try from a boost USB stick or DVD to run hardware diagnostics. If anyone has recommendations in that area it would be awesome. I found an Ultimate Boot CD homepage and haven't really reviewed yet what all it offers.
Any help is appreciated.