Windows 10 stuck on welcome screen

[Ben Cuttle]

I upgraded from windows 7 to windows 10 when it came out. Previously, it has worked fine. However, I started my laptop this morning and logged in. On the welcome/loading screen after you put your password in I get stuck. The loading circle goes round and it says welcome but it stays on that. I have restarted multiple times but it still gets stuck. Any ideas?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi and welcome to the Forum:

Lots of folks have difficulties with this Upgrade; both during and after as you have. It would be very helpful to know the Make/Model of your laptop. Can you tell us how you performed your Win10 upgrade; did you download from the Microsoft app store using the little windows widget in the System Tray of your Win7 desktop? Or did you download using an ISO file and burn your own DVD or USB stick? Or did you buy a Win10 retail boxed product with disc+key in Microsoft packaging?

I'm telling you that there are at least 3 ways to do the upgrade, so we need to know which one before we give you a list of things to try.

That being said, if your laptop is over 2 years old, this problem sounds like a failing hard drive, which is very common. Since your laptop came with Win7 on it, which came out in 2009, your laptop could be as old as 6 years old, and there is a 75% chance that your drive has failed.

Post back responses to my questions, and we'll tell you how to further test your system for hardware failures.

Did you happen to run the Microsoft Upgrade Assistant prior to running your Win10 upgrade? Let us know that too.

Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

If you have your install media try this.

Boot from your DVD or USB drive.
Select, Repair your computer.
Click on, Troubleshoot
Click on, Advanced Options
Click on, Start Settings
Click on, Restart
Select, Safe Mode with Networking.

See if it will boot into safe mode.

Look at what's loading at Start in normal mode.

Windows Key + R

Type msconfig

Disable anything that isn't necessary.

Then just reboot and see if it's fixed.

It may be hanging up loading something.
If it's OK you can reactivate things a few at a time, and see if there is a problem.

If you don't have install media, download the ISO file and create a disk on another computer.

Installing Windows 10 using the media creation tool - Windows Help

Select the option to create media for another computer.

If the computer doesn't boot into safe mode the disk will give you other repair options, i.e. repair and reset.

Mike