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Windows Vista hangs at boot
I’ve had an intermittent boot problem for a while now where at start up the computer hangs / loops on trying to load the operating system. It passes the BIOS screen ok and goes onto the Microsoft Corporation progress bar but just continues with the HDD going down to an idle.
If I show boot info at start it goes past loading a couple of pages of drivers and then shows the os build details and hangs / loops getting no further. On a normal boot the next stage is checking the file system of various drives and reporting them as clean before getting to the logon screen.
I've tried -
Start-up repair this runs then offers system restore.
Used System Restore - didn’t solve it.
Full check disk - passes.
MS file checker command - 100% verified
Dell support centre PC check occasional fault on CMOS but rerun tends to come up clean.
Windows memory diagnostic - passes
Boot logging - the command is carried over to the next good start
It will always start if I boot to the safe mode user logon screen then restart. I had the problem back in the summer (just after 1 year warranty expired) and after reinstalling the SATA driver it disappeared for a month or so and when it re-appeared another reinstall of the SATA driver sent it away again. But now that doesn’t solve it, neither does installing updated driver offered by windows updates.
The only items in the Device Manager showing a yellow ! Warning triangle are multiple instances of the MS 6to4 Network Adapter and the MS isatap Network Adapter but more of these are hidden but clear of warnings.
The only post (http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/17971912/18098452.aspx#18098452) on these forums I've found with the same problem related to a swapped hard drive but mines the original.
Dell Dimension E521
Windows Vista Home Premium Sp1 32 bit
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
2 GB ram
320GB HD over 200GB free
ATI Radeon X1300 video
TEEMM
2 Posts
0
June 25th, 2009 08:00
Hey Pug,
I have been having exactly the same problem with my Inspiron for well over 1 year now. I purchased the PC about 18 months ago. I have worked with Dell numerous times but to no avail. I even re-loaded the pre-configured Vista from the D drive with Dells help. That seemed to resolve the issue for about 3 weeks but it has returned. Seems to happen every couple of days. If I power off/on and then "launch Windows Normally" rather than "Repair" that usually works. Sometimes it takes 2 or three times. But the whole thing is aggravating.
Were you able to resolve your problem successfully. If so I'd really appreciate to know what you did.
Thanks.
Tom
jsl7
1 Message
0
July 24th, 2009 00:00
Hi,
I have too started lately to suffer from this very problem. I have Dell Latitude D630, 32 bit Vista SP2. Nowadays I can get my machine up by only disabling a bunch of devices first in safe mode, then normal boot succeeds and devices can be enabled and they work then just fine.
This is also discussed in MS forums:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasp/thread/fffb502a-6a44-4768-a6f9-606769c20067
Any help appreciated!
TEEMM
2 Posts
0
July 24th, 2009 06:00
jsl, Your problem seems worse than mine in the sense that the gyrations you have to go through (Safe Mode, etc) are even more aggravating than what I experienced (I am the second person to post to this probelm) so I am not sure we have the same issue. Dell had me upgrade my hard drive firmware about 2 weeks ago and I sincerely thought that would fix the problem because the description of what it was intended to resolve sounded exactly like my situation. My system ran great for about 6 days and then the problem returned. Dell replaced my hard drive 2 days ago and this time my system is running better than it ever has (Samsung replaced by a Western Digital) but it's certainly too early to say if in fact I finally have a "reliable" system. Only time will tell. - Tom