x64 Hangs on "Starting Windows": Run Out of Ideas

[Greenside]

This morning my computer greeted me with a static Starting Windows screen. It had been on all night and must have suffered a crash of some kind but all my attempts to start it have come to naught so far.

OS Win 7 Ultimate (64 bit)
CPU Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.8Ghz
Motherboard P7P55D LE
Memory 4Gb DDR3
Graphics Card(s) HIS ATI Radion HD5700
Displays 2 x Viewsonic 1912w
Hard Drives 1 x WD 1Tb SATA; 2 x Seagate 320Gb SATA; 1 x 250Gb IDE
PSU Coolermaster 600w

The OS is on one of the Seagates in a partition of 150Gb and my data on the 1Tb drive F.

I have run the Windows Recovery Tools from a bootable CD with these results:

• Startup Fixer reports no problem but does no good either
• System Restore says it's completed but still no bootup
• Using the Command Window to run Chkdsk on C: reports no issues but Drive L (the other Seagate) finds multiple problems with unreadable sectors. I haven't run the /F switch yet since I can't see how this can be related. It's a drive devoted to media and worked fine yesterday.

I have backups of my data and a System Image of drive C (two months old, sadly) but am reluctant to restore the image because I don't know if or how it might affect my data on drive F - will a restored system on C leave my files on F intact? I believe my backups are OK but would sooner not put them to the test.

Any suggestions for a next step would be much appreciated.

 

[richc46]

If you can get in with safe mode, go to search, type msconfig and then make a clean boot to get going and get testing for the cause.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

Once you change the settings in msconfig, boot in normal mode.

 

[Greenside]

Safe Mode

I tried booting up in Safe Mode and every other option you get by pressing F8 but it makes no difference.

 

[DocBrown]

I would try disconnecting the second monitor & all HD's except the win7 boot HD until you can get a stable repair install.

 

[richc46]

ON a dell , if you press f11 continually during boot, you should get the option to go back to factory specs. No, I do not know what happens to the stuff that you saved on the other drive, but my hunch is that it will be ok.

You could try this first to back up.

Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
Same as for 7

 

[Greenside]

I'll try stripping all the extra peripherals first and get back to you. BTW when I try to load in Safe Mode it shows a list of drivers loading and then hangs saying Please Wait.... The last driver on the list at this point is CLASSPNP.SYS - is that significant?

 

[Greenside]

It seems that the IDE hard drive is the cause of the problem. When not connected the system boots OK so I'm going to run Chkdsk /f on it and see if that does the trick. At the end of the day the stuff on there is not that important so if I lose some it's not too awful.

Checkdsk ran but the system still won't boot if the HD is connected. I'll try plugging it in after startup via a USB interface and see if the disk is salvagable.

Many thanks for your help.