Stuck during boot

[MrBadAxe]

Last night, my computer spontaneously rebooted. When it got to the 'Starting Windows' screen, the animated windows logo never appeared. I rebooted.

Tried running System Recovery. This time, the screen is "Windows is loading files..." The progress bar fills up and then freezes.

Tried booting into safe mode. Again, the "Windows is loading files" progress bar fills up and then freezes.

Tried to reinstall Windows. Boots from DVD, then the "Windows is loading files" progress bar fills up and then freezes yet again.

Have been running Memtest86+ for the last ~9 hours, no issues.

What next?

Specs: MSI 790FX-GD70 | AMD Phenom II X4 945 | 4x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1333 | 1x80GB Intel SSD (OS) | 2x1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200RPM HDD (other) | 1x2TB WD Elements external HDD (backup) | XFX RadeonHD 6870 1GB GDDR5

 

[unoriginal1]

Kinda thinking it's your ssd from the symptoms. My first thought was RAM but 9 hours is plenty of time :/. Try installing the OS on one of your extra HDD's and see what it does. (seems the next best step)
While your at it i would check all your sata cables, try a different sata port too. Might be a bad cable or port.

If you get the same issue, try booting from 1 stick of RAM and switch them out (bad RAM doesn't always show errors in memtest)

Good luck

 

[MrBadAxe]

Will test when I get home from work.

Shame if it were the SSD. It's less than 2 years old and I was hoping it would last at least as long as my conventional HDDs.

 

[chugot9218]

Ehh, early gen SSD's are a little glitchy, and I don't think the Intel's were exactly wonders of efficiency.

 

[helz IT]

On the plus side, it would still be covered under warranty.

 

[MrBadAxe]

Took out drive, plugged in via SATA-to-USB converter to laptop, ran CrystalDiskInfo. Still shows 100% health, can access file system just fine.

Then, tried replacing the SATA cable. Happy to report, the drive is working again and was able to boot to Windows.

 

[MrBadAxe]

Best answer selected by MrBadAxe.

 

[unoriginal1]

Took out drive, plugged in via SATA-to-USB converter to laptop, ran CrystalDiskInfo. Still shows 100% health, can access file system just fine.

Then, tried replacing the SATA cable. Happy to report, the drive is working again and was able to boot to Windows.

Very nice cheap and quick fix. Glad to hear.