Windows 7 will not load past the starting windows screen

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
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10,510
We have a gateway nv59c66u laptop here that was having problems and we were told it was the hard drive. We purchased a new hard drive, and successfully installed windows 7 home premium using the recovery discs. All drivers installed correctly since there are no exclamation points in the device manager that say otherwise. However, once the laptop is restarted, it will not boot past the "starting windows" screen. I see the little window doing it's flash that it does while loading, but never gets past that part. I read on another forum that it could be a bad install of windows, so I used another windows 7 home premium disc that I had, everything installed great again, all drivers installed perfectly again, restart the laptop and the same problem!!! The laptop is not very hot at all, and the fan is working so I do not believe it is over heating, I have not received any blue screens of death, so I am completely stumped. The only thing I have not tried was new RAM. Could I have received a faulty hard drive? Any help is much appreciated!
 
Solution
Occasionally I have seen Intel chip set drivers cause instability on some old-ish systems. On a quick search of the model number that's a newer system than I typically might see such a problem on. But if you still have problems, re-install drivers one at a time until you find one that causes windows to fail to boot

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
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10,510
Also, I'm not sure how it is here, but on other forums you always get the snarky responses, "have you even checked our forums for solutions, there are topics just like this" blah blah lol. I indeed have checked the forum topics I show with people having a similar problem, which is where I got the idea bout trying windows from another source but it did not work. I have yet to see a solution that would work on the laptop I have.
 

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
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Ok, so this is going to sound weird, but I removed the battery and plugged just the power cord in and powered it up and it worked just fine. I reinstalled the battery and plugged the cord in and its working just fine now??? Could the battery have been causing this? This is really odd...
 

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
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10,510
I am fixing this for a lady I work with, and she said it was doing the same thing before buying the new hard drive. She said she sent it to gateway once and they replaced the hard drive, but then 6 months later it was doing the same thing so she just said the hell with it and let it sit. So she bought a new hard drive and I told her I would install it and put windows back on her computer for her since she wasnt paying best buy or gateway to do it. Once I got windows installed everything was great until I restarted the computer and it started to not load windows properly again until I just pulled the battery and put it back in. I tested the ram using the repair option after holding down f8 and it passed. I will try using the memtest you provided to see if maybe it is a memory issue. This is one of the oddest laptops I have ever worked on lol
 

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
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10,510
Do you think maybe there was some residual power or whatever its called in the laptop that was causing this issue? I know one of the tests gateway asks you to do is removing the battery and power adapter and holding down the power button for like 30 seconds to clear any extra residual power or whatever they call it.
 


A static charge. I thought about that when you mentioned the battery thing but it's an odd presentation for that kind of problem. Ordinarily the system wouldn't start at all (no display, no POST) if there was a static charge on the board.

 

tgilbert03

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Dec 18, 2013
7
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10,510
Maybe it was just a coincidence that it acted up after I installed the drivers. The only other thing I did, which was at the same time I removed the battery was clicked on "use last known good configuration" and re-installed the drivers. Maybe that was it.
 
Occasionally I have seen Intel chip set drivers cause instability on some old-ish systems. On a quick search of the model number that's a newer system than I typically might see such a problem on. But if you still have problems, re-install drivers one at a time until you find one that causes windows to fail to boot
 
Solution