Boot freezes at "starting windows", Startup Repair/Safe Mode/USB boot not working...

Xike

Reputable
Feb 26, 2014
1
0
4,510
Hi there,

My desktop has been working just fine lately. Today, when I got back from classes, Steam was having trouble downloading an update to a game (the error, in particular was "an error occurred while updating (disk write error)"). Thinking a restart would fix this, I restarted my computer and have since been unable to get past the "starting windows" screen on boot. Specifically, the windows animation will play and then... Nothing. I've left it for 5-10 minutes with no results.

I've tried holding down F5 while booting windows to both try and launch startup repair and/or safe mode. Startup repair either fails to launch (black screen) or launches and displays a background and movable cursor but without any dialogs. Safe mode has consistently failed to start. The last file it appears to load before freezing up is "CLASSPNP.sys", for whatever it's worth.

I created a bootable USB that I can boot from, but after the "windows is loading" screen appears the screen goes black and nothing happens.

My boot drive is a Corsair Force GT 240Gb SSD. I am running a dual boot with Ubuntu, and use grub as my bootloader. I can successfully boot Ubuntu on the drive despite windows breaking.

I have two alternate drives that have some space left on them. Not sure if there is enough for a backup windows install.

I've honestly run out of ideas. I'm clueless what caused it and don't know what I can do to fix it. I'd like to save my data on the drive if possible, but I'm starting to think it's a lost cause. Please let me know if you think of anything. Thanks a bunch!