[Cbeppe]

When I booted up my computer, the Windows 7 flying circles in the splash screen wouldn't appear. I shut the computer off and tried again. I was advised to run Startup Repair, but this results in a black screen just after it has finished loading the files. After a long while, a blueish screen appeared with a cursor, but I was unable to do anything.

I turned the computer off again and restarted, this time running a startup diagnostics test from the BIOS menu. Everything came up fine except the Hard Disk test, which wouldn't start and returned a (303) error.

While I'm hoping this can be fixed without having to throw out the hard drive, it seems to be just that that causes the problems. The weird thing is that it came completely without any warning; it worked this morning, I shut it down, returned 3 hours later, and it wouldn't boot.

I would really appreciate it if someone knew what to do here.

Thanks a lot folks.

Cbeppe

This post has been edited by Cbeppe: 23 May 2010 - 06:39 AM

[Autocrat]

Take out the hard disk, clean the golden fins that connect it to the motherboard and plug it back in. If this does not solve the issue, insert an OS live disk (like Ubuntu Linux). Try accessing your files from within there. If they are inaccessible, then it is surely an issue with the HD. If the files can be accessed, then try reinstalling the OS.

[Cbeppe]

Thanks for the reply, Autocrat.

I was going to try to access it with a Live USB Linux, but I got the Startup repair to work. It has been "attempting repairs" for the last 3 hours now, so I guess I can hope it works. I'll be traveling the next week, so I hope it will fix itself before the morning.


One thing, it might not mean much, but the light indicating that the hard drive is working has been on for the duration of the Startup Repair run. Does this necessarily mean that the Hard Drive is working?

Again, thanks for taking the time.

[no2pencil]

I would put the drive on another Windows machine & check for any NTFS disk errors with chkdsk /r at the command prompt.

[PDUNZ]

Were there any updates downloaded/installed before you shut down the computer the first time? Sounds to me its a corrupted driver issue. Press F8 whe it starts loading and either select "last known configuration" or step through each file (there is an option for it also in the startup menu) and see which one it stalls on.

[Autocrat]

Cbeppe, on 23 May 2010 - 05:36 PM, said:

I was advised to run Startup Repair, but this results in a black screen just after it has finished loading the files. After a long while, a blueish screen appeared with a cursor, but I was unable to do anything.

Cbeppe, on 24 May 2010 - 12:10 AM, said:

I was going to try to access it with a Live USB Linux, but I got the Startup repair to work. It has been "attempting repairs" for the last 3 hours now, so I guess I can hope it works.

If at times you are unable to do Startup repair and at times you can, i.e. your system is so sensitive, then I can be sure that it is a hardware prob. Sensitive devices can be cured through removing, cleaning and replugging.

If it is attempting repairs since the last THREE hours, from this I can hope that nothing will happen. If your PC is one capable of running Win 7, then it just cannot take that much time for this task. OK do this. Plug your HD into another machine as a secondary drive. See if it is visible in Windows Explorer. Format it completely (backing up your data first), then do a complete reinstall of the OS.

You can go to a technician and they have IDE disk casings which convert the pinout of the drive to a USB, making it function like a USB drive. That can help if you cannot plug the HD as a secondary drive.