Windows 7 x64 StartUp Failure

[Lord Lynnaeus]

I have been running Windows 7 x64 Ultimate for 9 months without any major problems.



My set up is as follows:
Motherboard: ASUS Striker Extreme, chipset NVIDIA 680i
CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6600
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 8500 & 2x1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 6400, giving a total of 6 GB RAM
Graphics card: MSI NX8800 GTS OC edition 320 MB
Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W

Cooling: 7 intake fans (12 cm each) & 2 exhaust fans(12 cm each); Thermaltake VolcanoV1 CPU cooler; HDD cooler for the Raptor drive; Corsair RAM cooler (came with Dominator RAMs in a package)
Case: Cooler Master Stacker 832

Hard Drives: 40 GB WD Raptor 10000rpm which is partitioned into 3 - C: Windows Ultimate OS, D: Programs & E: Games. The other 2 drives are 2 x 320 GB Seagate Barracuda drives in RAID 1 (Mirrored) array for storage & backup, partitioned into 3. There are other drives but these are external & so should not affect the set up.


I am only running one OS - Windows 7 Ultimate x64, on C, & I install all my programs on the next partition D.
I have also been consistently making images of my system with Acronis v10, especially before I install programs, hardware, etc.



Each time there is a problem & sometimes when I feel that uninstalling something would leave too many traces that would clog the registry, slow things down, etc or if I suspect that there is malware, I would restore both C:Windows Ultimate & D: Programs using the Acronis bootable disk.



As I mentioned, I have had no major problems until now. I last used Adobe Photoshop Elements v8 to edit some photos & plugged in a new gaming mouse - Cooler Master Storm Inferno. There were no conflicts or hiccups & I shut down the entire system as per normal.
When I started the system the next day, it could not get past the WIndows Start Up screen & it rebooted. I followed the advice given on these forums to do the startup repair (numerous times) but it always ends up in failure, with the message:


Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 1
Problem Signature 05: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 06: 1
Problem Signature 07: NoRootCause
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033




I see that others on this forum have had the same error message & failure with start up repair. I then proceeded with the other advice dispensed by the MS moderators, which are to
1. Boot to safe mode. This fails - the system loads a long list of drivers as seen on the screen, then suddenly reboots, without ever getting to the startup screen
2. Memory Diagnostic Test. No problems were detected
3. chksdsk f/ through the command window. No problems were detected.


What is even more bizarre is that restoring my Acronis images does not solve the problem! I have wiped / formatted the C & D partitions many times & restored different backup images (all of which worked perfectly well in the past). Each time, it says that the image is successfully restored (which it probably has) because I am able to see the various files on C & D using Explorer within Acronis, but when it gets to the Windows Startup screen, it crashes again & I see the same options to attempt start up repair or to continue booting Windows, all of which inevitably fail.....
I would think that restoring a backup image should elimate whatever corrupted registry files, system files, errors, etc - as it has in the past, because the OS drive is wiped clean / formatted & a previously working image restored? What is the problem here?



Hardware? But I have not installed anything new.... & I have unplugged that new gaming mouse. Other hardware & peripherals have been in place for so long without any problems.



If it's drivers or progrmas or software, restoring a backup image should solve the problem, as it has in the past.



Please advise. Thanks.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome to SF!

The first thing I noticed was the size of your hard drive: 40GB / 3 partitions. Windows 7 needs a minimum of 20GB to be installed. In reality, this is not practical, as Windows will take more space as time goes on.

How full is your C drive? I recommend giving it a good 5GB extra space; i.e. free space beyond what is being used.

Safe Mode is failing- that almost always indicates a hardware problem.

A system image restore didn't work- that eliminates the rest of the doubt of a software problem.

I recommend completely cleaning the hard drive, with the clean command. See this tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

Then reinstall Windows, giving it the 20GB. Hold off on creating the other 2 partitions for now, so you can expand the C volume if needed.

Run with just the necessities for a while, e.g. web browser, Office, whatever you can't operate without.

If the problem persists, we know it is a hardware problem, and we can start diagnosing RAM and hard drive.