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Windows 7 won't start, hangs on "Starting Windows" screen, no logo
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I can't think of anywhere else.
This is going to be long, but hopefully all the information will help. Last week, I attempted to recover my Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB (this is the second time recovering it, but I'll figure that out once I deal with this problem) using Stella Phoenix Data Recovery. I formatted the My Book, no problem, and let the Recovery wizard run. It was running for a good 3 or 4 days up until now. Since it was taking to long, I just let it run and check on it when I get home.
Today, I come home, and I see the My Book idling, so I know my computer blue screened, or it restarted somehow. I turn the monitor back on, and I'm greeted with the American Megatrends screen. It lists all my hardware, and everything seems fine. It says to press Del to resume, so I do, and that gets me to the BIOS page. I hit Exit to save changes, and expect Windows to start, but nope: the computer restarted.
Bewildered, I went through the same American Megatrends page and the BIOS page three times with the same result. I tried changing my boot drive to my SSD, then my secondary hard drive (also had Windows 7 installed), then my DVD drive. Nothing worked. I called a friend and helped trouble shoot, asked me to reset my BIOS (couldn't find that setting), asked me to remove the SSD to see if that was the problem, and it still didn't work. Then, I noticed a message at the bottom of the American Megatrends page:
4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace
He googled that for a bit, and told me to go disable the S.M.A.R.T. setting wherever I could find it in the BIOS. I did that (with the SSD removed) and I was able to select the Windows 7 that was installed on my hard drive (Samsung F3 1TB). But it would hang on the "Starting Windows" page with no hint of the Windows logo loading. My friend told me to plug the SSD back in and try booting again. This time, I selected the Windows 7 version installed on my SSD, but again, it hung on the "Starting Windows" page with no Windows logo. I restarted the computer (manually shut it down using the power button) to see if it would work. This time, when I selected the Windows 7 installed on my SSD, it allowed me to select Launch Repair, which I did. It got past "Windows is loading files", and then hung again on the "Starting Windows" screen. I figured it needed some time, so I left it and went to play Zynga Poker. Half an hour later, it was still on that screen.
I tried popping in the original Windows 7 CD and tried booting from the disk. It got to "Windows is loading files".... and hung there for two hours.
I restarted it again and am waiting on it, and am waiting for it to boot from the disk again, but does anyone have any guidance? I'm so sorry for the long story but I figured I might as well include all the details to let you know what I've tried.
This may or may not be important, but before this crash, when it was still helping me recover the My Book, I would move the mouse a few times, and try to open some random programs (MSi Afterburner, Microsoft Word) to let the CPU work a little, but they never opened. Task Manager also froze for days on me, and even when I opened a second Task Manager, I could not end the first Task Manager.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to answer any questions the best I can!
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I can't think of anywhere else.
This is going to be long, but hopefully all the information will help. Last week, I attempted to recover my Western Digital My Book Essential 1 TB (this is the second time recovering it, but I'll figure that out once I deal with this problem) using Stella Phoenix Data Recovery. I formatted the My Book, no problem, and let the Recovery wizard run. It was running for a good 3 or 4 days up until now. Since it was taking to long, I just let it run and check on it when I get home.
Today, I come home, and I see the My Book idling, so I know my computer blue screened, or it restarted somehow. I turn the monitor back on, and I'm greeted with the American Megatrends screen. It lists all my hardware, and everything seems fine. It says to press Del to resume, so I do, and that gets me to the BIOS page. I hit Exit to save changes, and expect Windows to start, but nope: the computer restarted.
Bewildered, I went through the same American Megatrends page and the BIOS page three times with the same result. I tried changing my boot drive to my SSD, then my secondary hard drive (also had Windows 7 installed), then my DVD drive. Nothing worked. I called a friend and helped trouble shoot, asked me to reset my BIOS (couldn't find that setting), asked me to remove the SSD to see if that was the problem, and it still didn't work. Then, I noticed a message at the bottom of the American Megatrends page:
4th Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace
He googled that for a bit, and told me to go disable the S.M.A.R.T. setting wherever I could find it in the BIOS. I did that (with the SSD removed) and I was able to select the Windows 7 that was installed on my hard drive (Samsung F3 1TB). But it would hang on the "Starting Windows" page with no hint of the Windows logo loading. My friend told me to plug the SSD back in and try booting again. This time, I selected the Windows 7 version installed on my SSD, but again, it hung on the "Starting Windows" page with no Windows logo. I restarted the computer (manually shut it down using the power button) to see if it would work. This time, when I selected the Windows 7 installed on my SSD, it allowed me to select Launch Repair, which I did. It got past "Windows is loading files", and then hung again on the "Starting Windows" screen. I figured it needed some time, so I left it and went to play Zynga Poker. Half an hour later, it was still on that screen.
I tried popping in the original Windows 7 CD and tried booting from the disk. It got to "Windows is loading files".... and hung there for two hours.
I restarted it again and am waiting on it, and am waiting for it to boot from the disk again, but does anyone have any guidance? I'm so sorry for the long story but I figured I might as well include all the details to let you know what I've tried.
This may or may not be important, but before this crash, when it was still helping me recover the My Book, I would move the mouse a few times, and try to open some random programs (MSi Afterburner, Microsoft Word) to let the CPU work a little, but they never opened. Task Manager also froze for days on me, and even when I opened a second Task Manager, I could not end the first Task Manager.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to answer any questions the best I can!
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 7AMD Phenom II X4 5552x2GB OCZ Platinum Edition DDR3 PC3-10666Sapphire Radeon 6870
- OS
- Windows 7
- CPU
- AMD Phenom II X4 555
- Motherboard
- Biostar TA785G3
- Memory
- 2x2GB OCZ Platinum Edition DDR3 PC3-10666
- Graphics Card(s)
- Sapphire Radeon 6870
- Hard Drives
- Generic SSD (64GB)
Samsung F3 (1TB)
Seagate (1TB)
- Case
- Antec 300
I'm going to restart the computer if it continues to hang like this and try the advanced options again.
