Windows 7 Windows 7 Ultimate - Machine Won't Re-Start

Cribgochman

New Member
Hi all...am new to this forum and from what I've seen so far, you folks seem to be doing great things for each other!

So, I hope you'll be able to help me. I have a fairly old (about 3 years) HP machine - an xw4200 but I like it and it and when I ran the Windows 7 compatability check, it gave me the green light to proceed. A while back, I installed a new HDD (500GB) and additonal memory to boost it up to 3GB. I loaded up Windows 7 Home Ultimate and all was good - found a few little niggles (NAZ access etc) - but I was told that I could resolve these easily with the Ultimate version as it would allow me to access the security settings (which Home Premium does not). Both the Home Premium and Ultimate are full installation versions, not upgrades.

So I did a clean install with Ultimate (using the Win 7 built-in quick-format option); It wizzed through and all appeared to be ok. One problem....my machine won't do a restart, whether that be actioned from the Windows 7 start menu or from within application or update software being loaded onto the machine. When I hit re-start, it shuts down fine, goes through the initial BIOS stuff and just before Windows starts, the HDD light stops flashing and am left with a blank screen. To get around this I simply press the power on/off button (the machine switches off straight away - without me needing to hold it in for 5 seconds), press it again and the machine boots up normally, very fast in fact. There are no other issues and Windows reports no problems. If I ask it to shutdown it does exactly that and nothing more. and of course powering up is also normal....it's just the restart function that doesn't work. I have the latest drivers for everything - chipset, graphics, sound etc etc., and device manager looks good. I have even changed the boot order in the BIOS and also disabled all devices (with the exception of the HDD of course).

It didn't do this with the Home Premium version (although I have just found out that one of the guys in our IT department at work has the same problem on another HP machine with Home Premium!)

I would be so grateful if anyone has any ideas and is willing to share them. I appreciate that this is really just a niggle but as I am sure many of you understand, I am pulling out what little hair I have left and will soon rival Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas!

Thank you in anticipation.

Steve
 
Hi all...am new to this forum and from what I've seen so far, you folks seem to be doing great things for each other!

So, I hope you'll be able to help me. I have a fairly old (about 3 years) HP machine - an xw4200 but I like it and it and when I ran the Windows 7 compatability check, it gave me the green light to proceed. A while back, I installed a new HDD (500GB) and additonal memory to boost it up to 3GB. I loaded up Windows 7 Home Ultimate and all was good - found a few little niggles (NAZ access etc) - but I was told that I could resolve these easily with the Ultimate version as it would allow me to access the security settings (which Home Premium does not). Both the Home Premium and Ultimate are full installation versions, not upgrades.

So I did a clean install with Ultimate (using the Win 7 built-in quick-format option); It wizzed through and all appeared to be ok. One problem....my machine won't do a restart, whether that be actioned from the Windows 7 start menu or from within application or update software being loaded onto the machine. When I hit re-start, it shuts down fine, goes through the initial BIOS stuff and just before Windows starts, the HDD light stops flashing and am left with a blank screen. To get around this I simply press the power on/off button (the machine switches off straight away - without me needing to hold it in for 5 seconds), press it again and the machine boots up normally, very fast in fact. There are no other issues and Windows reports no problems. If I ask it to shutdown it does exactly that and nothing more. and of course powering up is also normal....it's just the restart function that doesn't work. I have the latest drivers for everything - chipset, graphics, sound etc etc., and device manager looks good. I have even changed the boot order in the BIOS and also disabled all devices (with the exception of the HDD of course).

It didn't do this with the Home Premium version (although I have just found out that one of the guys in our IT department at work has the same problem on another HP machine with Home Premium!)

I would be so grateful if anyone has any ideas and is willing to share them. I appreciate that this is really just a niggle but as I am sure many of you understand, I am pulling out what little hair I have left and will soon rival Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas!

Thank you in anticipation.

Steve

This may be a hardware issue but to remove any possibility of a corrupt system file, run a command prompt as an administrator (rt-clk) and type SFC /SCANNOW. It may ask for your install disk.
 
Thanks busydog

Thanks for the info....just started that running. Off out for a while now so will report back later. Been reading some threads that point towards a sound card/device issue. May try disabling the sound on the MOBO if this doesn't work. If it doesn't at least I'll have a clean dll cache! It's frustrating because everything else seems to be working perfectly. Thanks again....S
 
There must be some process that hanging.

Close out all windows, then bring up Task Manager and post a screen shot here,..Grab the sides to expand it so we seee everything.
 
Can you restart in SAFE Mode? If you can, you need to use MSCONFIG to systematically remove programs and processes from startup and you should be good to go after you find the culprit.
 
Busydog....went into safe mode. Only program / process running is: -

C:\program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe/autoRun (Reg loc - HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run)

The only services running are Crypto, Windows Event Log, Power, RPC Endpoint Mapper & Windows Management Instrumentation.

The only software I have loaded on this PC since installing the OS is Norton 360 AV and the latest updates as well as the OS updates from Micrososft.

Thanks....S
 
Guessed as much. Suppose the mosty frustrating thing is that it re-started fine with Home Premium version. One of the guys at work just called me to say he's loaded Ultimate onto one of his machines and he's got the same problem! In addition, when he perfroms a shutdown, the machine restarts! Am jealous! LOL. Mine doesn't do that!!! Eeeeek, what's going on here??
 
Busydog....went into safe mode. Only program / process running is: -

C:\program Files\Windows Sidebar\sidebar.exe/autoRun (Reg loc - HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Run)

The only services running are Crypto, Windows Event Log, Power, RPC Endpoint Mapper & Windows Management Instrumentation.

The only software I have loaded on this PC since installing the OS is Norton 360 AV and the latest updates as well as the OS updates from Micrososft.

Thanks....S

Didn't answer the question.... can you restart in SAFE Mode? If you can, go to MSCONFIG and disable ALL startup items and all non-microsoft processes. Try restarting again in NORMAL Mode.
 
You can uncheck everything in msconfig except for your anti-virus scanner ans side bar if you use gadgets.
 
Busydog....sorry! Having one of those days...and sorry for delay in getting back. Ok, machine will NOT restart in Safe Mode - same symptom as in regular operation. Must emphasise, this did NOT happen with Windows 7 Home Premium version....everything was normal.
 
Reghakr....disabled all services and startup items in MSCONFIG except AV. No change I'm afraid....machine still refuses to restart just before the point where it says 'Windows is Starting' and the 'windows flower' begins to appear on the screen.
 
Guys, just thought I'd mentioned that I tried disabling the on-board sound and also the graphics card (seperately), both to no avail unfortunately. This is becoming a real pain - the machine is so fast and everything works really well apart from the thing won't re-start! Can hear the disc 'pulse' starting but then it just stops. The green lights on the system unit and the monitor stay on but the latter stays blank. It is then that my only option is to switch off and switch back on. Thereafter, everything is fine until I want to restart again. Have also done a full scan on the HDD and it reported back a clean bill of health. By the way, am grateful to you for all your help, patience and suggestions to date...thanks.
 
Hi Drew....ok, well I accept Norton is probably not the best. I disabled ALL of it's functions and tried a restart....made no difference. Are you saying that if I completely uninstall Norton 360, it might allow the machine to restart? I had Norton running when I had Windows Home Premium installed and everything was fine??
 
Guys....it's getting late here so am off to my pit.....thanks for all your help today - really appreciate it. Here's hoping you may have some more ideas tomorrow because I'm right out of them on this one! G'night
 
Bin Norton?

Hi again guys...so you're not saying that Norton is necessarily the cause of my PC not restarting, just that it's getting in the way of fault finding?
 
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