Windows 7 crashing when loading

[Marajade]

Got a new PC this month and has worked perfectly for about 3 weeks now. Last night ran into some problems with my headset, skype not reading the microphone or headset even though they were working. I restarted the PC, which it did fine, but now the headset really wasn't working. I rebooted once more, but this time, windows crashed when loading. It starts the animation where the lights sort of swirl around eachother, then flashes a bluescreen (too fast to read what it says) then dumps back to the motherboard bootup screen, before asking if I want to run windows statup restore, or start windows normaly (The doss like screen where you pick one of two options and has the countdown timer)

If I select boot normally, it just does the same thing and I end up on the same screen. Running startup restore simply sates that it can't fix it and asks to send the report to MS. I can also access the system restore programs, but attempting to load from any restore point simply returns an error at the end saying it failed, occasionally returning a bluescreen error afterwards if I don't simply shut down.

Any assistance or reccomendations would be appreciated.

[Niya]

Yeah, the cursed "reboot on errors" setting that any admin hates...
What you can try is to boot the system in safe mode. Start it up, and as soon as the BIOS is about to finish its stuff start to hammer F8. That should trigger a dos-like selection screen with a lot more options. Pick "safe mode" or "safe mode with network drivers" and see if the system still boots up. If even this fails, there's pretty much no chance left to get it back to running without a re-install.
If you get into safe mode, go to computer properties and pick the "advanced system settings" from the light blue sidebar (not on an english system here, so the menu points might be called a bit different). Go to the tab "advanced" and go into the properties of "start and restore". Remove the checkbox from "perform automatic reboot". Close all windows with OK and reboot the system. Now it should show you the bluescreen. Most important part is the STOP code (0xSomeNumber) and its description, the parameters behind the stop code aren't that important.

Getting the STOP code can be quite helpful to narrow down what is wrong, so try this first.

[xopher]

When tapping F8 and booting, when you get the option to go to safe mode, there's also a "disable reboot on error" option there. You don't actually ahve to get into safe mode to change that setting. You can get the stop code there.

http://forums.techguy.org/attachment...ta-f8-menu.jpg

Third option from bottom.

[Marajade]

Unfortunatly, for some reason my PC doesn't have the F8 option while booting... I get a BIOS/Q-Flash option, a show system specs option, a boot drive option, and a just plain Q-Flash

[xopher]

are you tapping f8 the whole time through all that? it doesn't show that you have the option, you just do it.

[Marajade]

The stop code is 0x0000007B

[xopher]

Your hard drive is fucked. Get a new one.

[Marajade]

I formatted the OS HDD and reinstalled windows, and it loads fine now. I'm still curious as to what caused the error however.

[xopher]

I would not be surprised if you see the error return. Sounds like a faulty drive.

[Niya]

0x7b is a quite general stop code, it "just" means that Windows can't find its own partition. It can be because of a faulty drive, but also a fucked-up boot loader, broken SATA controller driver, even boot sector viruses.
Run checkdisk over the HDD and see if it finds anything, also monitor the SMART values with a tool like CrystalDiskInfo. It could happen again, but doesn't necessarily have to. Sometimes 0x7b just strikes because of "bad luck"...

[Marajade]

I'm starting to think its possible that something is indeed wrong with the HDD. I've reinstalled windows and the drivers, but now the whole PC seems to be randomly crashing. Doesn't seem to be the same thing either time, just throws me to bluescreen and automatically restarts.

[xopher]

Being that he's only had it a few weeks, I would imagine it's a from-the-factory defective drive.