Laptop hangs at startup

[kahlil88]

My friend's laptop frequently hangs at startup, and she has to run Startup Repair (often several times) before it will boot. I don't think Startup Repair helps at all, as it reports no problems, and the system will sometimes boot after a hard shut-off.

Edited January 27, 2009 by kahlil88

[Tripredacus]

Try booting into Safe Mode to see how that reacts. If it works, then run msconfig to change the startup programs (not the services). and then try booting into normal mode. Make sure to do this when plugged in. Most notebooks have a program that is for the battery, so if you disable it you won't see your charge amount.

[kahlil88]

Safe Mode works good, but I don't think it's a startup program since it's hanging at the black screen with the green progress bar and "Microsoft Corporation" at the bottom. It seems when a system hangs at that point, it's usually a system file that isn't loading.

[cluberti]

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=117154

[kahlil88]

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=117154

I tried the boot trace command, but got an error message explaining the xbootmgr usage. I copied the it from that page, so it can't be a typo (not on my end anyway). I enabled boot log and OS boot information with the System Configuration utility. It loads all of the *.SYS files, but the hard drive activity light goes off and it hangs indefinitely at what I'm guessing is called the OS Boot Information screen:

Microsoft ® Windows ® Version 6.0 (Build 6001: Service Pack 1)

2 System Processors [1791 MB Memory] MultiProcessor kernel

Boot Logging Enabled

Edited January 27, 2009 by kahlil88

[mava]

I have this problem with desktop computer!

[kahlil88]

I've been unable to reproduce the problem when booting in Safe Mode, which makes me wonder if it's a driver issue. The laptop is an Compaq Presario CQ50z-100. It came preloaded with 32-bit Vista Basic even though it has an AMD64 CPU.

[x-Shadow-x]

This has happened to a few computers that I have worked on, the problem was there were some corrupt DLL/SYS files, run the vista install disc and go to repair.

Edited February 3, 2009 by x-Shadow-x

[kahlil88]

I don't think her laptop came with any install discs. There's a repair partition, but those typically only do factory restore.

[Tripredacus]

It wouldn't hurt to go into the system restore to see what options it has. I've never seen one of those just go and start without having to click something. I have also seen system recoveries that provide a non-destructive repair type option as well. You might be able to find this info out online first before actually running the recovery in case you are worried about it taking off on you.

[kahlil88]

It wouldn't hurt to go into the system restore to see what options it has. I've never seen one of those just go and start without having to click something. I have also seen system recoveries that provide a non-destructive repair type option as well. You might be able to find this info out online first before actually running the recovery in case you are worried about it taking off on you.

Well she finally realized the power of Hibernate, so it's less of a problem now (at least until Windows wants to restart).

[GrofLuigi]

the power of Hibernate

...to fragment RAM?

/me runs away...

GL