Windows 7, Safe Mode Only

A couple days ago I needed to reboot my desktop computer, Windows 7 HE. After going through a slow bios procedure, windows finally shows the start up screen but then goes blank (black) before the user login screen appears.

I inserted my windows Repair Disc, rebooted, entered BIOS and changed the boot device to the Disc Player, then allowed it to Restore to a previous point. When it was finished, it gave me some information about areas that it checked and everything showed no error. The last listed message said something about windows not starting due to a PATCH. Still, upon reboot, windows would not start in regular mode.

After doing some research, I came across a recent Microsoft Bulletin MS14-045 about issues with a security update causing BSOD. I went back and started my computer in safe mode and noticed I did have the updates in question. I try the procedure that is recommended but still cannot get windows to start up in normal mode, only safe mode, can't complete procedure.

NOTE: I took the covers off my tower and watched the led's on the motherboard during the boot process. I noticed that during the BIOS process, the "Boot Device" led goes red. It eventually goes out if left alone and windows tries to start but goes blank. Otherwise, it goes out if I F8 or enter BIOS. I'm assuming that there is an issue happening during that drives boot process. I'm not so sure it's the hard drive because it's only 6 months old, but I haven't ruled that out completely.

Any ideas?

 

Do you have a backup image, or a restore point from before the update was applied?

Let's say maybe from the first week of August, or just before?

 

One of the first things you should do is make sure that you have a valid Master Boot Record (MBR). To repair your MBR do the following:

Place the Windows 7 Repair Disk in your CD/DVD drive and reboot the computer.
If needed, press any key when prompted in order to boot from the CD and enter the Windows Recovery Environment.
This will bring up the System Recovery Options dialog box.
Choose the last menu item on the list: "Command Prompt"
At the command prompt type:
bootrec /fixmbr
Press Enter. This writes a Windows 7 compatible MBR to the system partition.
Take the CD out of the drive and reboot.

If you are still unable to boot to Windows, repeat the above process to get back to the command prompt.
At the command prompt type the following:
bootrec /fixboot
Press Enter. This writes a new boot sector to the system partition.
Take the CD out of the drive and reboot.

If you are still unable to boot Windows, you may need to completely replace your Boot Configuration Data store. If needed, I'll walk you through that or direct you to the appropriate web page (you can still get online in Safe Mode, right?)

 

OK! First of all, I just want to apologize for taking so long to respond. I'm working 12hr days and don't have much time throughout the week to work on this.

I ran the commands as instructed and each one completed successfully, but would not let me load windows normally each time. I suppose that I now need to replace my Boot Configuration Data store as suggested and yes, I will need assistance with that!

Yes, I can still get logged into my user account in safe mode.

 

No need to apologize.

Here's a link to a page that provides detailed instructions on how to replace your BCD store (I've used it myself in the past to rebuild BCD):

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/rebuild-bcd-store-windows.htm

Good luck and let me know what happens.

 

OK rustysavage. I rebuilt the BCD as instructed but I still can't get windows to load normally.

I'm suspecting something is going wrong with the hard drive. I'll tell you what I'm thinking and seeing.

When I turn the system off (power down), and then re-energize, I watch the LED's on my motherboard light up in certain areas as it runs through it's tests...memory, etc. Usually when this is going on, I watch the screen and see the tests flash by. I also see the BIOS product image come up about the same time the LED for "boot device" lights up. Usually, the BIOS image stays on for a few seconds and then moves on to additional tests. When it does that, the "boot device" LED goes out, and then after further tests, I get the BIOS image again which allows me to hit DEL to enter BIOS.

But now, when the "boot device" LED comes on, and the BIOS image comes up, the LED stays on and the BIOS image stays on screen for about 20 seconds before it moves on. When it does move on, the LED for "boot device" is still lit. It doesn't go out until I either hit DEL to enter BIOS so I can boot from DVD or wait to hit F8 to enter Safe Mode. It's at that time the LED finally goes out.

I'm thinking of pulling out the HD and connecting it via USB just to see what happens. The only other option I can see is to buy another HD and see if it has issues with that. In that case, I might be having an issue with the MB!

All I'm TRYING to do is find a way to isolate the problem.

Any suggestions! And oh, BTW, I appreciate your taking your time to work this out with me.

 

Well that was a waste of time!!!

So, now here I am back in safe mode. I'm not sure if this is an issue but while I was sitting here, I clicked on, Computer->Properties->Tools->Error-checking and the report I received said:

MasterFile Table BITMAP attribute is incorrect
Volume BITMAP is incorrect
Windows Found Problems With The File System

Anyway, I'll keep searching online to see what I can find.

 

I don't know about the lights on your motherboard. Are you saying that you've routinely watched your motherboard as you boot and have correlated the lights with what is showing on the monitor? You're an awfully curious geek

I did some research on the new error messages and wasn't able to isolate any fixes or repairs. The consensus seems to be that it's a sign of impending HDD failure. I have to admit that once the simple things have been eliminated (i.e. file errors, corrupt MBR, bad sectors) most of these "boot failure" threads go unresolved, leaving the user no choice but to replace the drive. Fortunately, HDDs have come way down in price. If I were you I would retrieve all of the important data from the drive and place it on an external drive, thumb drive, whatever.

What were you referring to when you said "that was a waste of time" ?

For some reason I was under the impression that you had already run chkdsk to check the HDD for errors, but in reviewing the thread I see nothing to support this. If you haven't yet done so, you should use the Repair Disk to get back to a command prompt and type the following, then hit Enter:
chkdsk /r
This will check your hard drive for file errors and bad sectors and will attempt to repair any that it finds. It can take more than an hour to complete on very large drives, so be patient.
​

 

Yes, basically! I know that my MB has several LED's that light up during a boot process. These lights will stay on if something is amiss and will indicate where to look, otherwise they will go out and the boot process will complete. In this instance, the "boot device" LED will stay on while the MB is checking the HDD. This is an indication something is amiss with the HDD. It's just confusing to me because I am able to start up in safe mode, transfer files between it and other installed HDD's and otherwise use the HDD as normal.

I was hoping that wouldn't be the case! This HDD is only 3-6 months old. Fortunately, I backup and save everything on another HDD! I have 3 total installed, 1-1TB WD (that's drive c: at the moment), and 2-500gb WD.

Oh, that was from my previous post. I wanted to see if I could get the MB to recognize the HDD from a different connection...USB! Waist of time in that it will not boot or even recognize the USB until further on in the boot process!

Doing it from the Repair Environment showed no issues. I did notice a change this time when I was trying to get to the Command Prompt, there was NO installed windows OS to choose from. At the prompt, I had to manually change to the C:\ drive before CHKDSK would even run..."cd c:\"!

Since I don't have much to loose, I think I'm going to try using Systems Image Recovery at this time. If I have issues with that, I might do a re-install from the windows installation disk. If that has issues as well, I'll try a fresh install! If all else fails, I guess I'll have to break down and buy another HDD and then complain about the last one to the store!

Am I jumping the gun here?

 

This really sounds like a failing HDD. I have seen them only go three months, especially laptop drives. HGST, which is a division of Western Digital has been a serial failure in my travels, and their parent company has never impressed me either. The exception would be their "Black" series.

Have you considered upgrading to an SSD for your boot device?

 

To the extent that nobody in here has volunteered any other suggestions, I don't think that you're jumping the gun. If you do a reinstall and the system still won't boot beyond Safe Mode then you can be confident that you have some sort of hardware issue, be it the hard drive or something else. The fact that you are still able to boot to Safe Mode (which seems to be working fine) together with normal chkdsk scan makes it questionable whether you have a problem with the integrity of the HDD platters. But there are other ways a HDD can fail.

In any case, there are a couple of other things I thought of to try first.

1.) From the command prompt, type sfc /scannow

This checks the integrity of various important system files and attempts to correct any corrupt or missing files.

2.) From your Recovery Disk menu, select the "Test Memory" item.

This will check the functioning of your installed RAM. A bad RAM stick can cause boot failure.

 

Well, I've tried scanning for corrupt files, "sfc /scannow" and ran tests on my memory, and nothing has come up. I've even downloaded Western Digitals program to check the HDD, and all things check out there as well.

The issue I've been dealing with is trying to determine whether the problem lies with the HDD or the MB. I did try to do an reimage on the HDD but still get BSOD aftet windows loads. Now I was thinking about just doing a clean install but since I can still use it in safe mode, I didn't want to loose that ability.

I know that this HDD was a cheap stripped-down version (Desktop Model) purchased from Best Buy, and it is likely an issue but, the reason it's fairly new is because I had a similar issue with the previous HDD, which begs the question, is it maybe the MB?


Before I purchased this particular HDD, I was considering a SSD for the boot device. But now, with prices the way they are, I might just install a small mechanical HDD to see if it solves the issue then change over to SSD if all works out.

Don't want to drag this thread out much longer and I do want to thank everyone for their input and suggestions. I'll post back when i make my proposed changes and let the thread know how things work out. Might just be of help to others with the same issue.

Thanks again!

 

I too wonder whether your problems are motherboard related. Certainly, we've found no conclusive evidence that the problem lies with your HDD. To that point, you should look into updating the drivers for you motherboard's chipset and updating the BIOS if available. I checked the ASUS site and found updates as recent as May of this year:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A99X_EVO_R20/HelpDesk_Download/

Unfortunately, I'm not certain exactly which motherboard and chipset you have installed on your system. To find out, you can download a system data mining app called Speccy that will tell you for sure what hardware and BIOS you have. Just install it, run it, and save the results as a text file that you can read.

I would strongly recommend that if you are going to replace your current hard drive, you upgrade to a small SSD for use as a boot drive. Not only are SSDs much faster, they also have no moving parts and are thus less likely to "go bad" compared to a HDD. BTW, it would not be at all unusual for your 3 - 6 month old HDD to fail. HDD failure rates do not climb in a strictly linear fashion over time. Instead, they start out surprisingly high, then decrease, plateau, and eventually begin a steady climb beginning at about 3 years of age. 80% of HDD fail after 4 years. I recently read an articles on this subject that might interest you.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/170748-how-long-do-hard-drives-actually-live-for

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck and ask that you post any follow up to this thread so that we all can learn from it.

 

You don't ordinarily expect mobo issues with Asus.

If this isn't an HDD issue, it really is performing a great mimic. There always is the possibility of poor solder, or even a bloated OS causing trouble. There is always the possibility that it's driver or even possibly BIOS related issues regarding hardware compatibility.

As long as you have all the data you need backed up, I'd nuke the drive and start over and see how it performs. Not sure if you still qualify for an RMA from ASUS, but, I'd suggest trying a different brand of HDD to rule out WD.

 

OK...I'm back in regular mode!

Not sure about this but I decided to update my BIOS because quite frankly, it was the only option I really had, short of installing a new HDD.

I tried to update the SATA drivers and Chipset drivers but Safe Mode wouldn't let me do that. So I downloaded the new ROM, placed it on a USB Flash Drive, entered BIOS and updated.

The system did a reset, and I entered BIOS once more to see if everything looked correct. I did notice the boot sequence option was incorrect in that it saw all three of my HDD's but listed them all as the same, ie: same size and name, but one is 1tb, the other two are 500gb. I wasn't sure what order to place them in so I left it alone hoping it would keep the boot order the same as before.

When I exited BIOS, I didn't attempt F8 this time and let it go and yes, it went to the right boot device and started windows. Once again, after the initial "Starting Windows" splash screen was done, the screen went black and the monitor power light started flashing as though windows quit trying to load. At that point, I reached down to get the tower off the floor to place it on the desk where I can watch the MB go through the boot process when all of a sudden, the monitors power light came on steady and the the user login screen came up!!!

I logged in and here I am! I'm not sure why it's taking it's time loading like this but at least now I'm back in and everything seems to be working. At this point I'm starting to think the HDD is having some kind of issue even though everything I use to test it says it's healthy and in good working order.

Before I do anything else, I need to take care of some things that I have gotten behind on, while I'm still able to in regular mode. Once I get those things taken care of, I might first try to update the SATA drivers and Chipset drivers I downloaded and see how that goes. Then I might go to newegg and find a SSD to replace this HDD, don't think Best Buy will have anything worth buying!

Am I going in the right direction? And thanks, to everyone for their input, I do appreciate talking this out with others...keeps me from overlooking something.

 

Definitely get your drivers updates, and as a general rule avoid using the Windows Update drivers from Microsoft. They tend to cause more trouble than they are worth. Always go to the manufacturer when possible.

I remember an old Compaq I was working on and the owner thought it was the graphics card. Turned out it was the MS update for the graphics driver...

 

OK, it's been a couple of months since I last posted. I have noticed a slow boot process all along and the "boot device" LED on the motherboard still gives me indications of a HDD issue. But, windows was eventually coming up and allowing me to log in. I just tried not to reboot to often. I even cringed at the thought of updating.

I used SpeedFan during this time to test each HDD in my system and out of the three (3), I kept finding that one of my extended HDD's was coming up with errors. Something about bad sectors, poor health, waiting to be written over but generally indicating a HDD going bad. I didn't think much of it....I was just focused on the boot device for issues.

Recently, I took the system apart for a good cleaning and decided not to reconnect that particular extended HDD. Now when I boot up, everything runs as normal, boot process is quick, MB "boot device" LED goes out and all things are back to normal.

At this point, before I decide to reconnect the extended HDD to duplicate the problem, I'm assuming the extended HDD was causing all the problems. I suppose I'm just too literal of a person by assuming the MB's "boot device" LED is indicating just that, the boot device and not any other device! I also want to run for a while, rebooting and all, to make sure this issue doesn't reappear.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their input in walking me through this issue. I also wanted to get back and let you know what I've found over a period of time. When i get some time, I'll reconnect that HDD and try to duplicate. Once I do, I'll write back and confirm!

linuxpowers

 

The issue could also be software. If Windows fouled up when updating, it can cause a slow boot and a host of other issues which would make you swear your HDD was fragged. I see that you already tried sfc /scannow, so we can rule out any type of repair loop.

It simply could be an issue with another drive bogging down the system as well.

Have you run an ATTO benchmark on the drive?