Recurring Boot Problem (Blank screen with cursor)

Zachary Amaranth

Honorable
Jan 26, 2014
4
0
10,510
In January, i started having trouble with my PC, where it would freeze on a black screen with a (formerly) flashing cursor, My system restore points were gone, too, so I asked a question here about that. I did a fresh install and everything worked fine for months. A couple days ago, it started up again, but infrequently (It didn't seem to happen on a reset, but it did when my PC was powered off and powered back on). Many of the topics I saw on this pointed to a failing HDD, so I just popped out and bought a new hybrid hDD. So I installed the new drive, installed Windows 7 aaaaand....Yeah, the first thing that happens on reboot is a blank screen with the frozen cursor.

I'm thinking maybe it's not the HDD if a brand spanking new one is having the same issue.

On my old drive, i tried checkdisk, tried fixing the boot record, checked my BIOS, and tried repair (My Windows 7 disc and the repair disc I made both said they were not the right type). For the new one, well, I just got this again. I don't know if there's a point. I did try a repair, but got the same message that my Windows disc wasn't appropriate for the version on my drive.

In terms of physical issues, I've checked all my connections, reseated the RAM and my graphics card (Didn't think that'd do anything, but I was in there), Most of my components are relatively new (less than a year) now that I've put in a new primary HDD. My current processor was installed between the last time I got this error and now. The only things that may be older are my Mobo itself (worrying that might be the problem, rather than just the drive or the OS) and the power supply.

I've included everything I can think of in hopes someone can help me figure this out. I seriously don't know what else specifically to try at this point, and web searches aren't helping any.
 

Zachary Amaranth

Honorable
Jan 26, 2014
4
0
10,510


I clear m fans routinely, but I did check 'em and they're clean. I have no ready access to PC where I can swap in my graphics card, but I got the same problem with the card pulled using the output from the motherboard. i would assume that disqualifies the card as the issue.

So I ran the memtest and got no errors on the first stick. When trying the second stick, the PC booted up into Windows and went through several boots without issue. It lasted like a whole day or so before there was a boot issue. This time, I got an error that Winload.efi was missing or corrupt and could not be loaded, with an accompanying error message 0xc000000f. This happened to me in January, and that's when I tried bootrec commands to no avail. After this, I ran memtest on the other stick of RAM, got no errors, and my PC booted up normally after that for no discernible reason.
 

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