Windows 7 stuck booting on pulsing logo

[TakuSkan]

Last night my desktop PC with 3 HDDs got stuck booting at the pulsing Windows 7 logo. I rebooted, and ran the "Launch Startup Repair" option. After running it and rebooting the system still stuck.

I then booted from the Windows 7 installation disk and ran the 'repair your computer' option. In the 'System Recovery Options' menu that followed, there was no operating system listed.

Results from a google search suggested running diskpart from the command prompt, diskpart being something I'm familiar with. What I found was that somehow drive letters had changed. My D: drive is now C:, E: is now D:, and my original C: boot drive is listed as E:.

Running 'list volume' I found no volume listed as a boot volume. I found the E: drive (my original C: drive) was not listed as active. So I ran 'Active' on the single E: partition and rebooted the Windows installation disk.

But still no OS was listed in the 'System Recovery Options' menu. Shutting down the system, I disconnected the 2 data drives, leaving only the original C: drive connected. Booting to the 'repair your computer' menu again, the Windows 7 OS was listed, but it lists partition size as 0 and location as unknown.

Running Startup Repair failed with the message that it could not repair the PC automatically. Cancelling that and running System Restore immediately returned an error "The parameter is incorrect (0x80070057)" And of course diskpart still reports the single partition on the disk as active.

I've read that the (0x80070057) may mean that system restore can only work when all of the drives originally connected to the PC are present. But when I reconnect the other 2 drives, the drive lettering goes back to showing my original C: drive as E:

I'm at a loss as to how to proceed to get this system ti boot from here. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TakuSkan]

Update on this: After having to connect drives 1 by 1 and booting into BIOS setup to confirm each drive in order for the system to see all 3, the Win7 OS was finally displayed after booting the Win7 installation disk in the 'System Recovery Options.'

Startup Repair still instantly failed. But I was able to run the option to restore Windows from the last system restore point. After rebooting back into recovery console from the Win7 disk, I was able to run Startup Repair. It took 5 - 10 minutes, but again returned the error message that it was unable to repair the computer automatically.

Diskpart is now showing the correct drive as C:, but I'm still stuck folks.

EDIT: Could this be an safe option: Bootrec.exe Tool - How to Use in Windows Recovery Environment
I have no C:\boot folder though.

 

[TakuSkan]

Update #2:

Ran the following as is outlined here: Bootmgr is missing - Fix

bootrec /FixMbr
bootrec /FixBoot
bootrec /RebuildBcd

Windows 7 starts to boot, but then stops and freezes when the Windows 7 logo 'pulses' for the 4th time.

 

[TakuSkan]

Update #3:

Followed the instructions on rebuilding the bcd for Option 1 listed here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508

Windows began booting, but again when the 4 color Windows flag logo appeared, the system froze again after about the 6th 'pulse', meaning the flag shrinks and expands a bit while the system is booting.

I am able to boot into Safe Node now, and have run System File Checker sfc /scannow. It found not integrity violations

 

[TakuSkan]

The Windows system log in Event Viewer is seeing this error over and over. I've yet to track down a solution:

The Computer Browser service depends on the Server service which failed to start because of the following error: 
The dependency service or group failed to start.

Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          4/1/2017 10:07:08 PM
Event ID:      7001
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      MSI

 

[TakuSkan]

It was some kind of problem with the graphics card & BIOS. Not sure exactly what. But jockeying graphics cards and setting BIOS defaults after getting some odd BIOS error notifications managed to resolve the issue.