Solved Suddenly can't start windows, safe mode works, many repair options haven't worked

EDIT: Forgot to say, sorry if this isn't the right thread, let me know if I'm in the wrong place

Hello, my laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L350D running Vista home premium 32bit. As of about two nights ago I can't get into Windows normally, it reaches the Microsoft Corporation screen with the green loading bar and hangs there indefinitely. It was working fine earlier that day (Tuesday), but after I'd turned it off for a couple hours, it started doing this once I tried starting it up again. I can get into safe mode and I'm able to use/copy/etc my files and programs fine as long as safe mode allows.

I have been doing basically nothing but trying to fix my computer since this started, I've done a lot so I apologize that this post will be a bit of a doozy. I just don't want to miss anything possibly weird.

There's a couple little issues with safe mode.

• When restarting/shutting down from safe mode, it'll reach the blue "shutting down..." screen and hang/load for several minutes (like, nearly 5-10) before bluescreening and shutting off
• Uninstalling/disabling things in Device Manager brings up the uninstalling dialog which loads indefinitely (I've left it for 15+ minutes), I tried this on several devices and same result
• An info balloon/popup from the notification area reads "Hardware ID Missing. Windows cannot identify the device plugged into Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader. For assistance contact the hardware manufacturer." I'm not sure what this is referring to? My USB port, CD/DVD slot and SD card slot are all working fine.

Other than these safe mode seems to be totally fine.

Things I've tried:

• Last known good configuration does nothing, still hangs on the same screen when starting up
• Clean boot set up in safe mode doesn't work, same result
• System restore doesn't change anything, same result. But when getting into safe mode I get the dialog telling me the system was restored to an earlier date
• Chkdsk never ran when starting it from safe mode, telling me it'll do it on the next restart, and doesn't run when starting up in either mode
• AVG didn't find anything

I don't have any Vista or recovery disks/DVDs and never have (I got the laptop as a gift a couple years ago and don't recall finding a disk in the box?), but I have a recovery disk burned by a friend (same person that bought me the computer), I think I got this disk 1 or 2 years ago.

Running from the disk I got more repair/recovery options, so more things I've tried since I got that:

• Memory diagnostics came out fine
• sfc /scannow in the command prompt comes back with "Windows resource protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix them"
• Finally got chkdsk to work through the command prompt, that I can remember it never came back with anything weird/bad
• bootrec /fixmbr and bootrec /fixboot both came back as confirmed but didn't change anything

aaand Startup Repair:

• First couple of times I got this "If you have recently attached a device to this computer, such as a camera or portable music player, remove it and restart your computer. If you continue to see this message, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance." Nothing was attached. It did this again earlier today too though so maybe it's just being moody?
• Eventually it worked and I ran it a few times. When it completed and told me to finish and restart, nothing changed when starting up normal mode.
• I always check the info before finishing and every time the root cause is something like bugcheck and a bunch of numbers and letters, I haven't thought to write it down, sorry
• Either once or twice it didn't work telling me "unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem" OR it did finish and that was the root cause, and the time it didn't work I don't remember what it said exactly (it's one of those two, sorry for vagueness)

And that is everything, sorry for the huge wall of text.

As a final note, I've copied all my important files onto an external harddrive and am totally prepared and willing to do a factory reset, clean install, etc if that is what I need to do. I'd just need help going through with those as I've never done them myself.

Thanks.

Post here and ask Peter (Ex_Brit) to send you the link to the versions of Vista you need, 32 or 64. Include your E-mail address mucked up, like abc at xyz DOT com then edit your post and remove it as soon as you receive the link.

The ISO Peter provides has both SP1 and SP2 applied.

Use ImgBurn at 4X speed to create the bootable Vista Install DVD.

How to run chkdsk and System File Checker (SFC) from the Recovery Console

• Boot your Vista or Windows 7 installation DVD
• When you see "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD", press Enter
• At the "Install Windows" screen, click on Repair your computer at lower left
• At the System Recovery Options screen, make note of the drive letter assigned to your boot drive (normally C: ) and click Next
• At the Chose a Recovery Tool window, click on Command Prompt. You will be sitting at X:\Sources directory
• Run chkdsk or SFC
• If you did not note the drive letter of your boot disk, you can enter bcdedit and look at the osdevice line to see what it is.
• For chkdsk, type chkdsk c: /r and press Enter (use the letter from above if not C: ).
• For sfc, type sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows and press Enter (use the letter from above)

Let either run to completion undisturbed.

Here is a good tutorial on Clean Installing Vista: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117366-clean-install-full-version-vista.html

I'm currently trying to burn the iso onto the disk, ImgBurn has been at 0% all over (Locking drive for exclusive access) for about half an hour now. Just wanted to check, is it normal for it to be this slow?

No, that is not normal.

Did Ex_Brit send you the md5 hashsums for the iso? If so, check the one you downloaded to see if it matches. If not, download it again.

I don't think so? I don't know how I need to check that, but I'll redownload the iso and try again anyways.

I got the disk burned and did what you said, SFC came back saying it repaired corrupted files but I still can't get into normal mode, it's hanging on the same screen.

Run sfc 2-3 times until it reports no errors. If it says it can't repair some files then run DISM to fix the store files sfc uses to repair from then run sfc again like so:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /scannow

I don't know if this will fix the problem or not but it can't hurt.

I've run SFC about 3 times now and it's still coming back with having fixed corrupted files. Should I keep doing it?

Never mind, clean install apparently did the trick, I rolled back to before I installed those first couple drivers and everything was back to normal, so I guess that explains the whole problem. I'm almost positive it's the graphics/display driver.

I'm still working on getting my computer back to normal so I have no idea if ill run into more problems, but as far as I know I should be good for now, and my initial issue was resolved so I guess I can mark this as solved.

For reference, in case anyone finds this thread in a search looking for help, the driver I suspected caused this was the ATI Radeon chipset and display driver.

By the way, thanks a ton for your help.

I glad you have things working again.