Windows 7 - Not Starting Properly - Help Please

[dj1298j]

Hi,

I have a problem with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

Recently, when starting the computer I can get to the screen where it normally asks me for my password but the password box, and the username picture, do not appear. The computer is not frozen (I can move the mouse).

Also, when booting in safe mode the computer stops right before I would get to the login screen and just shows the mouse cursor. Again, the computer is not frozen (I can move the mouse).

Things I have tried:

Run advanced boot and then:

i) Startup repair
This says it cannot fix the problem and I should contact Microsoft

ii) Run SFC from the boot CMD window
If I try to run sfc /scannow by itself it says:
"There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."

So I ran:
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d:\ /offwindir=g:\windows
In my case, drive C is the "reserve" partition (100 MB) and I have confirmed that my OS is installed onto drive G.
It says:
"Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation."

iii) Run checkdisk from boot CMD window
chkdsk /f /r
(I know that the /f was redundant)
then repeat i and ii


What else can I do?

 

[gregrocker]

Is the hard drive detected in BIOS setup? Did you SATA controller change mode there?

Everything is here that can be done for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start leading up to if necessary rescuiing your files to run Recovery, do the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 or if retail Clean Install Windows 7

 

[dj1298j]

Is the hard drive detected in BIOS setup? Did you SATA controller change mode there?

Everything is here that can be done for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start leading up to if necessary rescuiing your files to run Recovery, do the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 or if retail Clean Install Windows 7

The hard drive is detected in the BIOS. I have not changed any part of my hard drives in a long time. How do I know if my SATA changed mode and how would I fix that?

 

[gregrocker]

Some times a power cut can change the BIOS to defaults which might kick the SATA controller to IDE when it was set to AHCI instead. So that's something to try in addition to the steps I gave.

 

[dj1298j]

I have tried getting rid of this error message when running SFC:
"There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."

by running in the boot cmd prompt
dism.exe /image:G:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
without success (G is my Windows drive)

How do I force start SFC?

EDIT: Also, when running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, with a reserve partition (100 MB) on drive D and the Windows installation on drive G, is this the correct form:
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d:\ /offwindir=g:\windows


EDIT 2:

Something tells me there is something wrong with the command, because the SFC does not even show the % complete bar.

EDIT 3: Should "offbootdir" be the drive that is labeled "system rese" (C), or the virtual drive (X) that I am booting the repair tool from, or the drive with the Windows installation (G)?

EDIT 4: If I am on the virtual repair drive "X", will this command work:
G:\Windows\System32 then write sfc /scannow
Or does that just scan the virtual drive? The scan completes, but it only takes a few seconds which makes me wonder if it is only scanning the virtual drive X. How long does the SFC of 1 TB drive normally take?

EDIT5: It seems that SFC tries to repair files with "archived" files on my hard disk. If I boot from the Windows 7 64-bit SP1 .ISO, can I have SFC use the files from the DVD to repair my computer files instead?

EDIT6: What exactly does /offbootdir refer to, and why might it be different than the main Windows drive?

 

[gregrocker]

What were the results of the bootable AV scan?

Does an OS show up to repair in the window when you boot into Win7 installation media or Repair CD System Recovery Options?

Since some of the steps require using Partition Wizard bootable CD, go ahead a burn it to CD using Windows Image Burner and post back a camera snap of the drives map and listings as we may be able to spot a problem.

 

[dj1298j]

I will run Kaspersky Rescue overnight.

The Windows installation shows up fine in the repair section when I boot from the Win7 DVD.

 

[dj1298j]

I ran a full scan with Kaspersky Rescue 10 and it did not find anything.

It's so weird that the computer is still fully responsive, except not showing the account picture / password box. Could there be corruption of a user account or something?

EDIT: I will run CHKDSK again.

EDIT: If I can get to the welcome screen where one normally inputs the password, but cannot open the CTRL+ALT+DEL menu, is there any way to open a COMMAND window?

 

[brreaker]

Using the recovery console to copy cmd over sethc in system32, then pressing shift 5-6 times might work

 

[dj1298j]

Using the recovery console to copy cmd over sethc in system32, then pressing shift 5-6 times might work

That's a great idea. I will try that.
If anybody else needs this, it is described in detail here:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/249181/how_to_reset_your_windows_password.html

Is there any way to use the CMD window to remove the password from my account and choose auto login? EDIT: I think I found the way to remove the password. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/151258-user-account-password-remove.html But how do I set it to auto login? So instead of the computer displaying my user picture when I start the system (where it may be getting stuck), it would try to automatically log in. EDIT: I think I may be able to do this by editing the registry from kaspersky rescue disk 10. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/377-log-automatically-startup.html

EDIT: Another thing I should mention is that in my BIOS menu it shows that I have two operating systems, both labeled 'Windows 7'. It has been like that ever since I installed Windows 7 a couple of years ago. One of which boots into Windows, the other does not boot. Could that be part of the problem with confusing SFC?

EDIT2: Also, assuming I can run CMD within Windows 7 and try running SFC I wonder if it might give the error that "the repair service has not started". Anybody know how to launch the repair service from CMD? Also, how do I give myself permission to run SFC (to fix "Access is Denied")? Is there any way to log into my account from CMD?

EDIT4: Another thing I wanted to mention is that before this problem occurred, I installed nVidia beta drivers.

 

[gregrocker]

Open msconfig>Boot to delete the extra boot listing. If it's not there install EasyBCD to delete it on the Edit OS tab.

SFC /SCANNOW Run in Command Prompt at Boot

Work through the Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

 

[dj1298j]

Doing the sticky key trick to get the CMD to open worked!

I ran sfc /scannow.

It stops at 91% every time. Here is the relevant log entry:

014-04-11 12:50:41, Info CSI 00000ba4 [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction
2014-04-11 12:50:41, Error CSI 00000ba5 (F) STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND #25279835# from Windows::Rtl::SystemImplementation:irectFileSystemProvider::SysCreateFile(flags = (AllowSharingViolation), handle = {provider=NULL, handle=0}, da = (SYNCHRONIZE|FILE_READ_ATTRIBUTES), oa = @0xcec710->OBJECT_ATTRIBUTES {s:48; rd:NULL; on:[114]"\??\C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-security-credssp_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.17514_none_c5bf9b5affd21ddc"; aOBJ_CASE_INSENSITIVE)}, iosb = @0xcec6f0, as = (null), fa = 0, sa = (FILE_SHARE_READ|FILE_SHARE_WRITE|FILE_SHARE_DELETE), cd = FILE_OPEN, co = (FILE_SYNCHRONOUS_IO_NONALERT|0x00004000), eab = NULL, eal = 0, disp = Invalid)
[gle=0xd0000034]
2014-04-11 12:50:41, Error CSI 00000ba6@2014/4/11:16:50:41.669 (F) d:\win7sp1_gdr\base\wcp\sil\merged\ntu\ntsystem.cpp(2057): Error STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND originated in function Windows::Rtl::SystemImplementation:irectFileSystemProvider::SysCreateFile expression: (null)
[gle=0x80004005]
2014-04-11 12:50:41, Error CSI 00000ba7 (F) STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND #25279834# from Windows::Rtl::SystemImplementation::CDirectory::OpenExistingDirectory(...)[gle=0xd0000034]
2014-04-11 12:50:41, Error CSI 00000ba8 (F) STATUS_OBJECT_NAME_NOT_FOUND #25279833# from Windows::Rtl::SystemImplementation::CDirectory_IRtlDirectoryTearoff::OpenExistingDirectory(flags = 0, da = (SYNCHRONIZE), oa = @0xced008->SIL_OBJECT_ATTRIBUTES {s:40; on:"x86_microsoft-windows-security-credssp_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.17514_none_c5bf9b5affd21ddc"; aOBJ_CASE_INSENSITIVE)}, sa = (FILE_SHARE_READ|FILE_SHARE_WRITE|FILE_SHARE_DELETE), oo = (FILE_DIRECTORY_FILE|FILE_SYNCHRONOUS_IO_NONALERT|FILE_OPEN_FOR_BACKUP_INTENT), dir = NULL, disp = Invalid)
[gle=0xd0000034]

EDIT: Removing my password and choosing auto-login in registry did not fix this problem.

EDIT: In terms of services when I am stuck at the Windows welcome screen, everything looks normal except i) there is application "Windows Logon" , ii) there is process "LogonUI.exe", and iii) there is no explorer.exe.

EDIT 2: If I manually start explorer.exe, I can press alt+tab to switch between the desktop of user "system" and the "Windows Logon" screen (the later just shows the wallpaper).

 

[brreaker]

At this point, my advice would be booting from any Live CD, recovering your data, then reinstalling windows. After hitting problems like this, even if you manage to fully recover it, something went awfully wrong with it, and it might again.