Windows freezes seconds after booting

[JcGross]

The title says it all. Yesterday it did the same thing. I did a system restoration to a previous state that was a few days old thinking that windows couldn't load in because the boot drive didn't have a lot of free space left. So it worked, booted up nicely and I uninstalled a few games. But now it's doing the same thing! It worked fine earlier today. It loads the desktop and the shortcuts and then dies. We are talking about win8 btw. Please help me!

[JcGross]

I've tried booting with only one RAM but didn't help and I've tried disconnecting the secondary Hard drive (which is admittadly a bit broken) but that didn't yield a positive result either.

 

Edit: Ok, had to do a system restoration to a yesterday's state and now it's working again, so I'm writing form my PC again and not from my phone (that's why I had to reply instead of editing the original post). Still don't know what's causing these freezes, but I'm fairly certain that it's software related and not hardware related. I'm doing a defrag now but it didn't seem all that fragmanted.

So what happened between the last restoration and this one? Well I installed GTA San Andreas (which I did before the last restoration as well but I didn't play it that time), and that's pretty much it. I think Smart Security updated itself as well. Other than that nothing special happened. Is someone corrupting my windows? Or is it the hard drive that messes things up? What the h is happening?

[Colby]

When you mean freezes Is it a BSOD? Does it freeze is safe mode? If it doesn't freeze in safe mode I would try running Malwarebytes/download and run the malwarebytes anti-rootkit as well.

[JcGross]

When you mean freezes Is it a BSOD? Does it freeze is safe mode? If it doesn't freeze in safe mode I would try running Malwarebytes/download and run the malwarebytes anti-rootkit as well.

Well it's quite strange. It starts the metro ui then after a few seconds it stops responding to anything. The mosuse is still moving but I can't click on anything and the UI doesn't scroll anywhere. If I bring the desktop up before the freezing happens it loads the shortcuts and then it freezes. Again, the mouse is still moving but the shortcuts don't highlight. The system tray icons do highlight and I can "click" on them, as in the clicking animation is there, but nothing happens, nothing loads. I can also, and this is the strangest thing, bring up the thing on the right hand side of the screen (you know, that thing that has "search", and "devices" and "options" and "sharing") but it doesn't initiate properly. It just brings up the icons but not the dark background that's supposed to be behind them. Again, they don't respond to anything. I can wait for as long as I want, nothing will happen. The mouse will still be moving but nothing will respond. At that point I have no choice but to reset or hard shutdown.

As to safe mode, I don't know how to initiate safe mode with windows 8. If this doesn't work out I'll be moving back to Win7 just because it's easier to troubleshoot. (thanks for the respond btw)

[Colby]

You're going to need to hold down the shift key while mashing the f8 key. Then choose See Adavanced Repair Options ,then click Troubleshoot, then click Advanced Options (There is also a automatic repair option here I would suggest trying) then choose Windows Startup Settings. Finally click restart and when your computer boots you will see the safe mode option.

[JcGross]

You're going to need to hold down the shift key while mashing the f8 key. Then choose See Adavanced Repair Options ,then click Troubleshoot, then click Advanced Options (There is also a automatic repair option here I would suggest trying) then choose Windows Startup Settings. Finally click restart and when your computer boots you will see the safe mode option.

That menu came up by itself when it died and I had to hard shutdown. I tried automatic repair, but it couldn't find anything. I dicked around a bit searching for the safe mode bood option back then but couldn't find it. If the problem still persistts I'll try it.

[HEXiT]

if you managed to use system restore then its likely a registry issue.

caused by either corrupted data, a virus, bad install or user tampering. i assume you haven't manually been editing the registry as it can have undesirable results if you get it wrong.

corrupt data: may be coming off your damaged drive and corrupting registry entries. especially if you have installed some games on it and run apps off it.

virus: use a good antivirus as well as an specific malware tool. i personally use avira antivir free and a payed copy of malwarebytes as they both have realtime scanning that doesnt slow down my system to much.

you gotta remember no antivirus is 100% so even if you think your clean you should scan every 1s in a while with a different product as that may pick up something yours is missing. this goes for every 1.

bad install: you maybe installed a game or app that didnt properly install. possibly itwas lacking permissions ( the most obvious reason) such as installing on to the d drive which will often not need any permission but the installer wont have the elevated privs to write to the registry on drive c, which would result in a fail or hung install.

as your using the last good config. start windows from that. and then use a earlier restore point. 1s done use something like ccleaner to clean up the registry. you may have to run the reg cleaner a few times to get every entry. if you have it also use windows 7 manager's reg cleaner as it goes deeper and get some of the stuff ccleaner misses. (you can download a trial version from yamicsoft.

http://www.yamicsoft.com/windows7manager/

just use the clean up wizard and skip the parts that aint reg cleanup. dont defrage the registry ever it will seriously slow your system over the short to medium term. so just clean it and skip the defrag.

1s the scanning is done reboot windows and then run sfc/scannow (dunno if you can with win 8 though) from the runbar/taskbar/seach or where ever it lets you enter .exe txt.

this will repair any windows files you may have corrupted or have been corrupted...

good luck.