BleepingComputer.com: Windows 7 freezes after clean install

Hey guys,

Alright, so my hard disk crashed a few days back (I was running XP Pro), so I decided to install 7.

My specs are:

Motherborad: Intel 82865GBF
Graphics: On-board 256MB graphics, they are handling the aero style well.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz
Ram: 3 GB
HDD: 320GB


Now, here's the problem. I installed Windows 7 and it loads up fine. Then when i'm doing anything like browsing though empty folders or opening up the control panel, the compe freezes for a few seconds, the active window says 'Not Responding' in the title bar.

I took a closer look at the Cabinet and realised that when I tell the computer to do something, the HDD light doesnt light up, then I get the Not Responding, and then 10-20 secs later, the HDD light blinks and the Not Responding window starts working.

It does this for everything I do, the HDD light has a lag of 10-15secs after which it lights up and the computer does what I had told it to do.

BTW, the Aero glass interface works great, no lags whatsoever in that respect.

Also important to know is that the HDD is completely blank, it only has Windows 7 on it, I havent installed one file or application.

So I think this is a HDD problem since it just crashed a few days back, but I can't be sure.

Ohh, last problem, My keyboard doesnt work completely (it used to with XP), in Windows 7 i couldn't press Shift or Caps Lock and some other alphabets, today morning I could press shift and Caps Lock, but those same alphabets didnt work.

The keyboard thing can either be a Keyboard problem (very unlikely) or a motherboard problem.

Please let me know guys.

Thanks.

Okay, new problem.

Just restarted my computer and after the Starting Windows screen, all I get is a black screen with a mouse, and I can move the mouse around but nothing opens, and HDD light was blinking a lot at the Starting Windows screen but on the black screen, no blinking.

This reminds me of a virus my brother had on his laptop last week (running XP). His laptop was working fine and then he started it one day and after the windows screen it just goes black with a mouse pointer.

try booting in safe mode and see how that helps also you can get free applications to check the health of your harddrive there are so many of them just google your problem and download the one that meets your standards heres just one

http://hard.software.informer.com/download...ealth-analyzer/

okay i didnt check this post until today...i installed vista, thinking it might be a problem with the windows 7 i had, but here also im getting the same problem, so its most likely hardware.

Motherboard, hard disk and Ram are the only possible problems right?

The system info says 3gb of ram so i dont think the rams not working, nor am I getting any beeping patterns during boot.

Actually, a bad mouse or a bad keyboard could do the same thing.

How about a printer or a scanner? could it also do it?

Oh, new development, restarted my comp a few times and once or twice i got this error "No Bootable Device --- Insert Boot Disk Press Any Key".

I would press restart again and it would boot up, but you can see the slow boot time if because the HDD light is not on, as soon as it comes on it's super fast.

Also, I used a couple of those freewares and they all said my drive is in a good health condition.

The error indicates that the hard drive is corrupt. Is there a chance on of the cables could have worked loose?

EDIT: And I think whatever tools told you that your hard drive is fine are wrong. The hardware inside the drive can fail intermittently; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

The cable isn't loose. I checked that yesterday when I cleaned out the dirt to increase airflow.

I'm kinda hoping its the hardrive, coz those are cheap.

I doubt its the RAM. Could it be the motherboard? Or could it be that the cable connecting the hard drive is spoilt?

It could be the cable, but my money is on the hard drive.

I had a similar thing happen to one of my builds. Resetting the BIOS did the trick for me.
To reset the BIOS, when booting up, press the 'Delete' key until the BIOS comes up, then select 'Load Optimized Defaults'
then press F10 to save them and it'll restart your computer.

I'm not 100% sure if this will work for you, but it worked for me. Please report back your findings...

Hey, thanks for the tip, but it still didnt work.

I changed the Keyboard and Mouse and reset the BIOS but still nothing.

But, since any hardware can cause the problem, I'm using a Netgear Wireless Adapter WG111V3 on my Desktop. Is it possible that this is causing the problems?

The wireless driver is not initialized until the OS loads, so no, it is likely not the wireless.

Alright, i think I need to try a new hard disk on this.

Any other suggestions? Motherboard?

Nope. Try a new hard drive.

You "Might" have a corrupt windows install.
Try:
1. Inserting the windows 7 disk.
2. When it loads Click on repair Computer(Small print, Bottom left)
3. answer some simple Q's and Let it do its thing