Windows 7 Startup Issues

Question

I had the exact same issue some weeks ago, but didn't look to much into it because I didn't understand what the problem was. This is on a Lenovo W520 Thinkpad, with 64-bit. Windows 7 Pro.

Back then I was reading something and listening to music when suddenly everything froze up and I powered down button-wise. Upon restart, after password entering the loading just never stopped. The spinning blue circle would at times freeze, the hard drive light was flickering here and there. After seemingly long times I just powered it down, tried again, failing, turned to safe mode, which booted successfully, from there I did some of the diagnostics I could find, but yielded no results. Ended up doing a system restore, which also took its damn time at start-up but either I was more patient, or hopeless so I waited.

This time around, the laptop had shut down while sleeping and upon startup the same issue. I tried a bootlog, which got deleted later for whatever reason, so this is from memory, but several drivers didn't load- half the network adapters: 6 5-6 letters Adapter (needed for VPN, I believe, with which I usually access the internet), sth WAN, ???; SM bios, SM bus, and maybe some others then it loops in the file and repeated those along with 4 new ones, the ones for the CPUs. Given that it said that all drivers, that had loaded in safe mode, worked properly, I tried what worked last time and did a system restore, which worked but damn did I wait a lot again at startup. The VPN service didn't start, just like in safe mode. This wasn't so last time, where the VPN service worked after the restore. I'm using another method for access, but it's bandwidth limited.

In the C/Windows/ file the last modified files that seem relevant are setupact.log where a whole lot of

AudMig: No audio endpoint migration settings found 0x2
WdfCoInstaller: [01/07/2017 21:38.48.710] ReadComponents:  WdfSection for         Driver Service ldiagio_uefi using KMDF lib version Major 0x1, minor 0x9 

, and two others- bootstat.dat (no clue) and PFRO.log.

Currently I'm running Windows Updates and any other kind of maintenance or update I can think of. The network adapters haven't loaded currently, so the problem defo isn't fixed with the system restore. I don't what to do really, after the update I'll reboot and update this with any relevant info.

What should I look into? I don't know what to do or where to start. I'll answer any questions to give more info, since I know I haven't given you much, but I don't know what's relevant in the end. '

Edit: Normal boot works, it just takes 15-25 minutes. I did Windows Updates several times, I believe that's the last of them, however one still gives an error while installing (error code 80070103).. Currently the VPN service works somehow and, interestingly, the adapter that I'd seen in Safe Mode plus networking in the beginning haven't been loaded. So, I don't really know if anything is fixed. I've always been anxious to shut down the laptop, but now I also fear it doing so on its own.

Edit2: Updated what I could. A normal boot takes 20 minutes. Last time VPN did not work, this time it did. Here is the boot log.

Answer 1

It seems that your restore point (by you or by the manufacturer) was not after installing all drivers; For that, you have lost some devices after restore.
First of all, do a "check disk" on your windows drive (I assume it is C:) as you have done some unclean shutdowns. For doing so, type
chkdsk c: /f
on command prompt (as administrator if needed) and press y when it prompts to do or not a disk check on next boot.
Reboot your computer and wait until the scheduled disk check is finished and now it reboots again automatically.
I recommend disconnect your internet (if connected) during all following actions as well as disable your antivirus (if any) temporarily. Also I recommend uninstalling (at least temporarily) any unnecessary software who may interfere installations or slow the system or increase the boot time.
Go to the device manager and look for the failed devices. Try to uninstall them all (but without removing installation files when it asks about) and then from menu rescan for new devices to see if windows can install some of them automatically.
For remaining not-installed devices you have to download appropriate drivers from your laptop manufacturer website (usually under "support" or "download" section of their site) and install them.