Win7 Boot Fail

[WaltP]

Does anyone have any idea why 1/3 of the time Win7 will not boot? Sequence is:
Dell Inspiron boot screen
Blank screen
Windows wallpaper screen
Blank screen with mouse pointer centered
Nothing from then on.

Turn off machine.
Turn on
Boots fine. Usually.

Since Windows does not like to show us what's happening, there's no clue to the problem.

Are there settings I can turn on to watch what's happening and maybe see where it gets stuck?

There are no viruses, so we can eliminate that suggestion right away.

[caperjack]

hi you could have a look in event viewer ,go start ,right click on computer,click on manage /event viewer ,check in custom viewer and event logs ,good luck

[WaltP]

Look at what? It seems to be an unreadable mess, not a clue where to even start.

[caperjack]

Look at what? It seems to be an unreadable mess, not a clue where to even start.

yeah not a pro at it yet myself, but its somewhere to start doing you troubleshooting.
in the attachment i numbered the steps i take ,1-2-3 .
www.google.com has more info than i do ,its where i start looking for solution when i have trouble .
http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&biw=1280&bih=607&q=windows+7+event+viewer&aq=0c&aqi=g-c10&aql=&oq=wind+event+viewer&fp=91f8441658dec073

good luck

[WaltP]

Thank you. Now it makes a little sense. Still have no idea how to solve a problem, but at least I can see what's happening.

[rhetorical]
I wonder why cdrom fails to load? I don't even have a cdrom. Who's the smart-a$$ that decided it should load anyway? :icon_rolleyes:
[/rhetorical]

[caperjack]

if cdrom is in the boot list in the bios it will try to load ,check boot order in bios if its there remove it .most bios setups will let you

[Vul]

This sounds a lot like an issue that I occasionally see at work, when older systems have 7 installed. We don't have any real fix for it, but I may be able to save you from having to reboot every time.

Once you're at that blank screen with a cursor, after the Windows splash screen, key in Ctrl-Shift-Esc to bring up the Task Manager. From File start the Explorer.exe and you should get a functional desktop.

After sniffing around a little, I found this. It may help you out a bit more.