samurai nightling February 20, 2009 Share samurai nightling Member February 20, 2009 So i tried to turn on my computer today. Instead of Vista loading like normal, i get a black blank screen after bios load. I'm like, hmmmmm, maybe it was just a fluke. Restart, same thing. Try again, this time i wait FOREVER (I'm talking a good 5-10 minutes) of looking at a black screen, and then it gets to where the login names are. SWEET! No, not sweet. I try logging in my name, and it sits saying "Welcome" like its loading, but once again, goes black, and just sits there. $#@$G%%#%#$&&% piece of !#@#!$%#% son of a $#@%^$^. Anyway, you get the point. I did get it to boot into safe mode, after a long while of waiting also, but then when it was in safe mode it moved at the speed of the very first computer ever built, only trying to run Vista, so it was basically dead. I couldn't even bring up system restore, it wouldn't load. In the end i put the Vista disc in and booted, did the memory check and all was ok. Then i tried to access the system restore from the boot disc, and even when i clicked on it, it would never come up. Everytime i clicked after the first time it said it was already running and was closing the application. I ended having to REFORMAT my entire drive, reload windows, and mind you i only had a few programs backed up on discs like cpu-z, coretemp, and the like. No REAL programs i needed so I spent the majority of the evening loading everything back on my computer, and I'm currently downloading L4D and Steam updates. Moral of the story is, Vista can suck a big one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cujo February 20, 2009 Share Cujo Member February 20, 2009 did you try the start up repair? based on your description i'd almost be thinking hardware issue but if the system is working 100% fine after format then it's likely not a hardware issue. strange though. haven't seen those symptoms yet thankfully. when i do i'm sure i'll need to vent here as well. also, why not just use this as an excuse to upgrade to windows 7? vista is so 2008 anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL February 20, 2009 Share dwEEziL Member February 20, 2009 And you have no idea if this is a Vista-specific error or not. Not saying it isn't but just a failure/slow boot could be many things besides OS related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samurai nightling February 20, 2009 Author Share samurai nightling Member February 20, 2009 (edited) Yes cujo, i tried the startup repair and it found nothing wrong, but still wouldn't boot properly. I'm not entirely sure whether it was Vista itself or something else, but I hadn't installed anything in a few days and had shut it down a few times since the last thing i installed. Just randomly crapped out on me today. I've restarted it already a few times because of updates and whatnot today since the fresh install, and its booted ok so far! The next thing i would be quick to blame is this harddrive, not that its a bad one, but I've noticed since I've owned it that it seems a bit off sometimes in the sound of it reading/writing, like its intermittent at like 2 second intervals sometimes, rather than constant or randomly fast and slow. Edited February 20, 2009 by samurai nightling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFirstMonk February 20, 2009 Share TheFirstMonk Member February 20, 2009 Is your hard drive the same as mine? Seagate 500GB 7200.11? If so, it could be a firmware problem. http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/self...sp?DocId=207951 Mine was one of the hard drives that are known to have this problem, ST 3500320AS with SD15 firmware. I upgraded the firmware a day or two ago. I don't know if this is what's wrong with your computer, but it's worth a look; some customers have reported "clicking" sounds coming from their hard drives before they failed. Here's one or two other links to look at: http://www.virtual-hideout.net/articles/Se...ues/index.shtml http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php...9266&page=3 You can find a lot more links on this stuff on the Internet if you google "seagate 7200.11 + firmware + whatever" or a combination of those terms. Hope your problem isn't your hard drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaftiel February 20, 2009 Share shaftiel Member February 20, 2009 I had a similar problem, and it turned out that the external hard drive that I used to backup my data had been placed in the bios as the primary boot device. I removed it and reset the boot order and everything worked fine. Shaftiel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroDamage February 20, 2009 Share ZeroDamage Member February 20, 2009 There is a reason that you should have a second hard drive or at least a second partition for your steam install. The entire Steam base folder can be moved around and this can keep you from having to do a fresh install in the future. Once a month, I backup the entire steam folder on my computer to another hard drive that I use just for backups. I also have a backup image which I acquired using CloneZilla. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler February 20, 2009 Share boiler Member February 20, 2009 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cujo February 21, 2009 Share Cujo Member February 21, 2009 i encounted a windows xp machine today that was bsod on boot. drwtsn32.exe was having an application error and then it would bsod. safe mode, last known good, nothing worked. it passed all the dell diagnostics even. so i'm replacing the drive to be on the safe side and then re-installing windows. he said he didn't install or change anything recently. just booted the computer this morning and that was what greeted him. anyway, point is, there's no rhyme or reason for this stuff. it just happens and it sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samurai nightling February 22, 2009 Author Share samurai nightling Member February 22, 2009 Thanks monk, i used Seagate's drive detecting software and yes, my harddrive is one of the 8 on the list. I'm prolly gonna update the firmware tomorrow or this week. Son of a.... I'm also getting an external harddrive soon to back stuff up to. Looking at getting at least a 500GB one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samurai nightling February 23, 2009 Author Share samurai nightling Member February 23, 2009 Firmware updated. Thanks monk for showing me that. Lets hope no future problems arise now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFirstMonk February 24, 2009 Share TheFirstMonk Member February 24, 2009 Firmware updated. Thanks monk for showing me that. Lets hope no future problems arise now! No problem. You (and others) helped me out when I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my computer. I am hoping that the updated firmware protects my drive as well, although I'll be backing my stuff up periodically just in case. We'll see... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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