Weird screen during boot / Win7

[Fran1001]

Hey, guys.

In all 10 years of mine "career" dealing with computers, building, installing, etc.; I've never seen this screen:

Note: Primary hard disk is shown here as an IDE drive, because it's in the IDE slot, and that's recognized as "channel 1", while the SATA is set as first in boot order.

Now, the problem is that the computer won't boot, it just leads to this screen, and won't go any further.
Can anyone give any advice on how to get past this or what's causing it?
Thanks a lot.

 

[DQuaN]

That looks like a fairly standard (albeit old) POST screen.

Can you get in to the bios and confirm the SATA disk is being detected?

It could be that your SATA disk has failed

 

[Coxis]

Have you tried the obvious?

Reseat everything, check HDD connectors, attempt to boot into safe mode, can you get into BIOS?

 

[Fran1001]

Thanks for replies.

One update, it could be the disk failing, as it managed to go past normal POST, twice, and said that NTLDR is missing, unfortunantely.

I can get into BIOS, SATA is detected, it is set as first in HDD boot order, connections are ok, and can't boot into safe mode as this happens AFTER normal (newer) POST and it's stuck there. :/

 

[BobK]

Can you boot off of CD/USB stick/diskette?

 

[Fran1001]

Will try when i get back home from work, thanks.

 

[DQuaN]

Disconnect the IDE drive so you are only booting off the SATA.

If you get the NT Loader missing again it means your boot sector is corrupt.

 

[Fran1001]

Hey, guys. Sorry for not posting yesterday, worked late.

I'm able to select the option to boot from USB or CD/DVD, and it shows the booting process started and just hangs there.

And tried disconnecting, same thing.
It's definitely boot sector failure. Thanks a lot for your efforts, guys, and for the quick responses.
That's why I love GTP.

 

[DQuaN]

If you have a windows disk you should be able to repair it.

 

[BobK]

I'm able to select the option to boot from USB or CD/DVD, and it shows the booting process started and just hangs there.

Silly question perhaps, but was the CD/DVD you were trying to boot from actually bootable?

If you have a windows disk you should be able to repair it.

Tough to do that when the machine won't boot up, though.

 

[Grayfox]

Tough to do that when the machine won't boot up, though.

Insert the windows disk and press the the key to bring up the boot selection menu, and select the DVD drive.

When loaded, go to repair my pc and select command prompt, then to the following command.

chkdsk C: /b

It will take a long time, but if it comes up with errors like

could not read file
Orphan file
or bad sectors you have a HDD issue.

Orphan files are normally corruption of the file system but you can see it with a dying HDD too.

If the drive passes with no issue use this command.

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

Reboot and see if it loads in fine, otherwise you will need to go back to the command prompt and use these commands

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\windows\
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

The drive that has windows may not be C: but it could be D:\ E:\ or even F:\

To find out type in the drive letter than dir to see what is on the drive.

If it has the standard windows root folders it is that drive you are after.

 

[BobK]

Insert the windows disk and press the the key to bring up the boot selection menu, and select the DVD drive.

When loaded, go to repair my pc and select command prompt, then to the following command.

chkdsk C: /b

Tough to do that when the machine won't boot up, though.

 

[Grayfox]

From the picture you posted it looks like it "boots up aka POSTs", it just doesn't load anything as it is having issues looking for a HDD boot sector to read.
So it "should" be able to load of a DVD.

The command prompt i am talking about is not in windows, but on the windows installation media.
When the windows install media loads it will go to a language/region selection screen.
Set it to what you like and click next.
On the bottom left there should be a text saying "repair my computer"
Click on it to enter the repair section.

 

[DQuaN]

@BobK We don't know that. All we know is it won't boot from the hard disk.

 

[BobK]

@BobK We don't know that. All we know is it won't boot from the hard disk.

He said:

I'm able to select the option to boot from USB or CD/DVD, and it shows the booting process started and just hangs there.

I took that to mean it wouldn't boot, period.

But then:

It's definitely boot sector failure. Thanks a lot for your efforts, guys, and for the quick responses.
That's why I love GTP.

does leave open the possibility that the CD wasn't bootable. Possibly we're interpreting the same thing differently here.

In any case, we need to learn more.

 

[Fran1001]

Wow, this turned into quite an "argument".

To sum it up, the disc was bootable, checked it on a different machine, although it hangs on mine. Tried with Windows USB/DVD Tool and with Boot Camp created USB drive, no luck. (two different USBs)

In the end, I took a second HDD and installed Windows on there, will try to boot tonight when i return home.

 

[Danoff]

Wow, this turned into quite an "argument".

To sum it up, the disc was bootable, checked it on a different machine, although it hangs on mine. Tried with Windows USB/DVD Tool and with Boot Camp created USB drive, no luck. (two different USBs)

In the end, I took a second HDD and installed Windows on there, will try to boot tonight when i return home.

If you can't boot off of your HDD and you can't boot off of a bootable disc/stick, you can't boot. A new HDD isn't going to solve that problem. Makes it tough to run diagnostics too (like a memory check or CPU stress test). Make sure that all of your hardware is cool, check the temperature readouts in the BIOS.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I'm late to the party but let's recap;

The drive sits in Slot '2' on your own PC but isn't recognised as bootable. It's seen but not booted. Has it booted successfully in that machine before now?

The same drive is working as a boot in your friend's PC. Was that in Slot '1' or Slot '2'? Check your own motherboard/drive documentation and see if you just need a jumper on the non-booting drive.

Try booting the machine up from a pen-drive (I use Ubuntu on USB a lot) and see if the drive is mountable that way.

As @Danoff says; ensure that the machine isn't simply overheating. That can happen very very quickly if a heatsink is separating or a fan's running stiff.

I'd also try splitting the RAM, try booting from CD with just one chip at a time. If even the Windows boot won't run then it could well be a motherboard/chipseat issue.

Did you try swearing at it?