Strange problems after Windows 7 installation with Boot Camp on iMac

Question

So, I thought give Windows 7 a shot on my iMac 20" running Snow Leopard. Installation went well, it is running without any problems. After the installation, some very strange problems occur:

1. When I boot into OSX, I have to wait for at least 5 minutes or longer, before I can login to my useraccount. I see the users on my screen, but when I click one of them nothing happens. After the 5 minutes, it's like the system awakes en everything I typed in the meantime appears.
2. It takes 2 or 3 tries sometimes before i really load into OSX. Most of the time my system freezes while loading the icons in the top, or loading the software in the dock. After 2 or 3 tries I usally make it through, and I can use OSX. While freezing I only see a colored cursor.
3. While using OSX, at unexpected moments the system can freeze, showing me just a colored cursor. Probally the same cause as problem 2. It's usally Finder or Safari that causes the system to freeze. Most of the time I have to reboot, but sometimes it works to put the iMac into sleep mode.

I thought this wouldn't be the worth the trouble, so I decided to uninstall the Bootcamp partition. But ofcourse this won't work either. When I start the Bootcamp-assistent, it states I don't have the latest firmware, although I absolutely have according to the website.

Edit: Of course, I tried to check permissions and check the disk with the installation CD and Disk Utility. I cannot check the Bootcamp partition, that one is grey, and according to Disk Utility, my Macintosh HD partition seems to be fine.

Is there a solution for this?

Edit 26-11-2010: So, still no solution. Thought I backup and format the system. No luck! Backup is also freezing.

Edit 30-11-2010: Deleted the Bootcamp position, resized it to the original format. No disk errors or permission errors. OSX is running a bit better, but all problems still occur.

Edit 21-12-2010: I am afraid this is gonna cost me a trip to the Apple Store? I was tired of the problems, so backup op important files manually, and dit a format on my harddisk, trying to re-install snow-leopard. The problems persist on the clean system. So, I did another format using the "rewrite everything with zeros" option. First time I did that the install crashed showing the "You need to restart your computer, hold down the power button" screen. Second time, it finished. Right now I am installing Snow Leopard, but almost certain that the problems are not solved, since the installation is freezing on the colored cursor I saw so many times before. Did the Apple Hardware Test, no problems found. Is this a faulty HDD or what?

Edit 23-12-2010: I managed to install Snow Leopard after a dozen tries. Are there any steps I can try before I have to turn in the iMac to a Service Center?

Edit 9-11-2011: After a long time of just leaving this problem, I started to anger me more and more, so I bought a new hard drive, and replaced it myself. The problems keep going on.. what could this possibly be now?

Just for information, the reason that I am so desperate to fix this myself, is because I can't afford to lose my computer for a few weeks, since I have no proper replacement. Also my warranty has expired a long time ago.

Answer 1

From the fact that a format with "rewrite everything with zeros" has crashed, it seems to me to indicate a hardware problem.

I would guess further that this is a problem with the hard drive. But it can be the disk, the cable, or even the controller on the motherboard. Under this hypothesis, some component that was anyway on the verge of failing, has collapsed because of the I/O required for the installation of Windows.

If I am right, then I am afraid that the trip to the Apple Store might be required.

Answer 2

Snow leopard has an issue when it auto-mounts NTFS drives about 1/2 of the time. You can stop that issue all together by using fstab to force unmount your NTFS drive/partition on boot: just open a terminal, type:

sudo pico /etc/fstab

if there is data already in this file DO NOT overwrite it, just add a line at the bottom, and ALWAYS back up the contents before modifying it.

Now just add a line in this format:

UUID=[uuid of your NTFS drive/partition] none ntfs ro,noauto

The UUID is the unique ID associated with your ntfs partition, it can be found in disk utility, by clicking on the bootcamp drive and hitting Information. example:

UUID=AF6CC054-D314-4FB8-A77C-537BB957C3C7 none ntfs ro,noauto

Now hit ctrl + o to save the file, and restart your system... presto... no more lockups / freezes

For more information on how this works, open a terminal and type

man fstab

Answer 3

I would do a memory test. It sounds like it could be a memory issue to me. Comment back if you do a memory test to let me know the results.