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I have built a custom machine and it runs very stable when it gets past the start/boot sequence. It has been up for over 3 weeks at a time until I have manually restarted it. I am running Windows 7 64 bit Professional OS.

The problem is at boot where it sometimes gets stuck at various places in the boot sequence. Sometimes it is stuck on the "Starting Windows" screen where the animation does not happen at all. Other times the animation happens but then it does not proceed past the colourful windows logo. Other times it goes through the boot sequence but gets stuck after I log in.

I have tried removing all hardware and reseating it and rebooting without all peripherals connected etc. and sometimes it will boot fine but other times it will not.

I've tried updating all the drivers to the latest I can find and also resetting the BIOS to defaults. I have also tried repairing Windows. As this is a brand new installation and works fine sometimes after boot I have not reinstalled Windows 7 yet.

When a boot failure happens there seems to be no logs produced or record of the failure. When Windows 7 does boot successfully there are no errors on screen. I have looked in the Windows logs for both system and applications and I see no reference there to any errors.

EDIT: My Motherboard is an ASROCK Z87M Extreme4 in case that helps in any way.

Is there a way I can troubleshoot boot steps to see where this intermittent fault lies?

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    Don't waste time troubleshooting. Just use the corporate imaging solution to reimage your machine, and restore any data from backups.
    – HopelessN00b
    Commented May 1, 2014 at 22:48
  • If you haven't replaced the motherboard and the case then you haven't eliminated hardware as a possibility. While the case being the problem is highly unlikely, it's still possible. I have had to replace a case in the past to fix a broken server. The case was slightly askew (internally) which caused a ground on the motherboard.
    – yoonix
    Commented May 1, 2014 at 23:14
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    Did you check the event logs for errors? Any hints in ntbtlog.txt when you turn boot logging on?
    – Hennes
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 6:23
  • @Hennes yes I checked the event logs. I don't see anything recorded in there. There are no errors at all. I did not check ntbtlog.txt. Where is that file located?
    – motionpotion
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 9:40
  • The log file is stored in the %SystemRoot% folder. If you used the default path when you installed windows you will find it in C:\windows\ntbtlog.txt.
    – Hennes
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 10:50

1 Answer 1

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Run a chkdsk /R from an elevated command prompt to check for errors in the filing system. If that utility does not solve the problem you can also run sfc /scannow as well. Many boot related errors are due to inconsistencies in the filing system and these are the goto tools Microsoft has provided to repair the issues.

Reinstalling the OS is a little drastic at this point if you haven't even attempted the basics.

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  • True. Reinstalling the OS is drastic but is a realistic option on the site where this question was originally asked.
    – Hennes
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 6:22
  • As I have just installed it a few weeks ago I want to troubleshoot it a bit more to find out why it doesn't boot properly everytime. I will reinstall eventually if all else fails first.
    – motionpotion
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 9:47

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