Ugly Win7 RC Boot issue


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I have three different installs of Win7 Ultimate RC x64 running. Two of them have been fabulous. The other one? Not so much.

Here's the rundown: System's based on an ASROCK mobo with a VIA chipset (4CoreDual SATA2, with an Inte Core2 Duo E5200 CPU). 2GB RAM (all it will take). I just built this thing in January, and installed the Win7 beta.

Recently used Easy Transfer to move all personal files and accounts to this machine when I did a clean install of the Win7 RC.

Machine's been running fine the past couple of weeks, but my wireless networking connection kept dropping mysteriously. My only recent change had been to install the latest Logitech SetPoint management software for my mouse/keyboard set, so I thought it might be the culprit.

After uninstalling SetPoint (which had BIG issues with the beta--I should have known better), I restarted only to get a bad hang. Boots to the "Starting Windows" screen, but logo does not appear. Bad sign; had this problem many, many times with the beta, but this was the first appearance on my RC install.

Startup Repair... doesn't. Tried several System Restore points, too. No dice. Boot to Safe Mode? Hangs immediately on a black screen. No love from LKGC, either.

I didn't really want to reimage (my 8 year-old daughter had a document she'd done for school that I didn't want to lose), but that had been my only solution when these hangs occurred with the beta. Even so, I went to look and see what my most recent backups were, only to realize I hadn't configured backups since installing the RC, and my only system images dated back to when I was running the beta! DOH!

Yes, I've tried bootrec.

I'm running out of options. Is this install salvagable? At all?

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Do whatever you can to get that document, although i can't imagine it being more than a few sentences, install xp on a partition if you have to..

Then format that beast.

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Do you have another machine you could attach the hard drive to in order to retrieve your daughter's file? That's the approach I would probably take: get the file and reimage or reinstall.

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Well, what I was hoping for here was that someone had already encountered this issue somewhere, and had a fix.

I have a feeling that this motherboard (with its somewhat spotty VIA chipset) has some problem with SATA. I'll try a clean install using the IDE hard drive I also have on the system. I still have the Easy Transfer file I used to set this install up, so I'll just use it again...

Thanks

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I'v had this problem many times, from 7000 on all leaked builds.

Win7 refusing to start.

Startup repair is USELESS and never works. Always have to reinstall. Simple thing like having the comp turned off befire it has shut-down can kill it and prevent from starting. System restore also does not work.

I wish there was a rebuilt options sometimes, or they fix startup repair!

That being said 7127 seems to be working fine so far...

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That being said 7127 seems to be working fine so far...

Yeah, this happened a lot with me with the beta. As I say, I currently run the RC on three different machines, and this is the only one that's presenting issues.

It is pretty perplexing, though. The system partition becomes completely unusable, at least to boot from. I tried a fresh install over top of the same partition, and it wouldn't even boot then. Had to format the partition completely and re-install. First guess would be the MBR, but running fixMBR doesn't help.

Any disk gurus out there with suggestions? If this happens on a significant number of machines I could see it tarnishing what could be an otherwise stellar launch for Microsoft.

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I still have dread when turing on the computer. If I don't see the three balls once starting windows happens I know i'm screwed! Either that you it goes black. If you have problems and several others are I wonder if Microsoft knows about this?

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I still have dread when turing on the computer. If I don't see the three balls once starting windows happens I know i'm screwed! Either that you it goes black. If you have problems and several others are I wonder if Microsoft knows about this?

EXACTLY. Occurred multiple times with the beta, this is the first time I've seen it in the RC. I'm really hoping this is an isolated issue.

My question now is: how does a partition become unusable (and I mean REALLY unusable) as a system partition? The files are still there (I checked), but you can't even re-install over top of it. You need to format it completely, re-install a fresh copy, then reboot.

In the beta, this would happen for me after certain installs. SetPoint was one culprit, but some Windows Updates would do it too.

Seeing at least one other user with the same issue at least reassures me I'm not going crazy :)

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MMM. Maybe it is setpoint? I have used it before. WU also sometimes did it. It's beyond frustrating.

P.S Have a look around at sites for the Hiren's Boot CD 9.8. Allows you to boot a Mini XP from CD so you can access and backup your files easily if this occurs again.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, I am officially ****ed off. Build 7201 just froze at startup. Had to reinstall after spending last night reinstalling everything already! Not happy. I was hoping this issue had gone away. I am tired of seeing "Starting Windows" and it not booting. Maybe I need to go back to Build 7127. Did not happen with that in the last two weeks.

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go back to vista.. until the Beta Isnt beta anymore ;)

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format reinstall the RC 7100 or later and do not I repeat DO NOT install stuff made for Vista like logitech or creative ect.. ect..

Windows 7 is very diff from vista in more ways then 90% of the people on neowin even know .

wait for your stuff to have win7 drivers then install.

remember you have a beta with windows vista drivers and programs not a good idea.

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I had not installed any drivers that were designed for Vista. Setpoint was not installed. Only programs. I have a feeling it is Windows Update doing it.

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Bumping this with a little updated info:

One of the three "test updates" that Microsoft published to Windows Update has caused this behavior consistently on the one machine of mine that's displaying this problem. After doing a re-image, I disabled these updates, and I haven't had the problem since.

A friend of mine installed the RC on a new AMD machine (don't know which mobo/chipset, unfortunately) and has run into this issue.

To be clear, I'm not ragging Microsoft or trying to run down Win7; it has run incredibly well on most of the installs I've performed, and from the other user feedback I've seen this does not appear to be a widespread problem. It is serious, though, since it basically 'kills' a system to the point where it needs to be re-imaged. If anyone else has seen this, please post. If anyone knows a solution, post it twice :)

I had not installed any drivers that were designed for Vista. Setpoint was not installed. Only programs. I have a feeling it is Windows Update doing it.

Those "test updates" that Microsoft sent down seem to be killing my system. I've tried disabling them, and it seems to work.

Needless to say, I'm running a full backup every night now...

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Well Build 7129 just did it to me! So frustrating! I had only installed the wireless driver, used Windows Update and it installed new wireless drivers and a chipset update. Computer froze on restart. Defiently Windows Updates causing it. Though drivers from WU should not be freesing the computer like this! This was on a brand new install too.

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My friend's issues are continuing. He's had the hang issue after installing Java, Adobe Reader, and Flash.

Ahhhh... Beta...

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Windows 7 is very diff from vista in more ways then 90% of the people on neowin even know .

No. It's not. There were no large scale change to the HAL (last one was done in Vista), nor was there a change that should cause something like setpoint or any other driver interface to be able to cause a failure of this sort in the OS. If that is the culprit then the issue isn't setpoint, the issue is in Windows 7 and would need to be addressed before it hits retail.

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  • 1 month later...

OK, Win7 RTM is giving me the ****s. The RTM Build is hanging on startup. First it was when I installed the SAME motherboard update from WU. Now it just hangs at starting windows and startup repair cannot fix anything so it starts. This has happened 3 times since I decided to install the 7600.18685 build.

It's really not good enough. Should not be happening! I should not have to reinstall my computer everday! It can't be an external driver issue, because I HAVE NOT INSTALLED *ANY* drivers, apart from the wireless driver and did not update any drivers from WU (Since they do cause the computer to die!). 7229 worked find for over a month! WHY OH WHY did I risk upgrading.

It's really not good enough. I understand driver issues etc, BUT WHY can startup repair and system restore not fix it? If I see the box " Startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically" I'M GOING TO BREAK SOMETHING!

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It should not be happening the RTM build...7229 has worked fine for well over a month.

I understand driver issues etc, BUT WHY can startup repair and system restore not fix it?

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