Startup Crashes

[rossco]

I formatted my hard drive on Christmas Day and installed Windows 7 Ultimate (yes I know - Happy Christmas to me) then over the next weeks reinstalled my usual collection of programs. A few weeks ago my PC started crashing upon startup, getting as far as the start of the flying windows colours, then shutting down altogether. Silly me thought it was just a one off so I left it too long, having installed more programs, to try system restore as a fix.

When I tried various repair options, the error code was 0x490. I googled for solutions so I tried 'startup repair' but it didn't work. Then I tried using bootrec.exe /mbr from the command prompt but that didn't work either. Interestingly, if I let it try to repair itself, then restart, it will start but that process takes about 20 minutes.

I've looked at various notes about bootrec.exe /fixboot and also /rebuildbcd and they both make reference to fixing the partition table. However I am wary of this because I have a D: and E: partition for my data and I can't tell if it means I could possibly loose those partitions.

Before I do anything I will have to do a total backup of all data and then worst case scenario is I will have to give my self another Christmas present all over again.

Hopefully, perhaps somone has a more elegant solution.

Thanks

[HansV]

Welcome to Eileen's Lounge!

A clean install may well be the best solution, but why not perform a system restore to a date before the crashes started first? You'd have to reinstall fewer programs than with a system reinstall.

[JoeP]

Can you boot into safe mode?

Joe

[rossco]

Just found this post I put in ages ago and thought I should give an update. In the end it was a faulty power supply! That's now been replaced and all is well.

Thanks.

[Leif]

Thanks for posting back!