Failure to boot Windows 7 or 10 - Bad mobo?

Kennshin

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
6
0
1,510
I've been running my PC for the last two years or so with no issues. Came home on Friday, and it was stuck in a "repair loop" with Windows 10 - i.e, it would get to the screen with the blue Windows logo and the spinning dots by "Starting Automatic Repair..." would freeze and never un-freeze.

After resetting the CMOS on the mobo, removing drives and testing individually, removing my graphics cards, testing each RAM stick individually, I'm guessing it's either my PSU or my mobo that's bad.

What's odd is that I can't even install a new Windows OS. Trying to boot from a CD or USB leads to roughly the same issue - once it gets to either the spinning dots (Windows 10) or the screen with the colored dots that form the Windows logo (Windows 7), the operation will freeze and never un-freeze. I can boot from a Windows 7 CD in safe mode, but it can't complete the installation from safe mode - and when it restarts to finish installing, lo and behold it freezes again at the same screen.

My conclusion was that my mobo is the root of the issue here, but has anyone else seen a case like this?
 

Kennshin

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
6
0
1,510
Yup, that's what I tried - reformatted the SSD, disconnected the HDD's, attempted to install Windows.

Problem being, I can't even boot into the CD unless I F8 into safe mode. If I try to just follow the standard "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD..." it freezes at the Windows logo.
 

Reformatting might not be enough.There should be multiple partitions on the drive.
If you format OS partition, bootloader partition might still be corrupted and prevent installing.
Clean the drive before installation. Use diskpart, when booting from windows installation media.

Also your installation media might be bad. Make another - USB installation media.
 

Kennshin

Commendable
Aug 24, 2016
6
0
1,510
Now there's something I haven't tried - I'll give that a shot tonight and see if using diskpart to clear all the partitions will get me somewhere.

A remaining question - is there a reason that my CD drive can only get into the Windows 7 installer if I go into safe mode, and not if I try to let it boot "normally" ? Same goes for the Windows 10 USB that I made - it freezes at the Windows logo screen like my OS and the Win7 CD do.