Computer freezes while booting

[Introvert_Monk]

A friend of mine asked me to try and repair his 80GB Hitachi laptop HDD from 2010. On his Win7 laptop, he got an "NTLDR is missing" error when trying to boot. I tried to repair the OS from a bootable USB stick but this method did not work. Then I tried reinstalling the OS but I got some error that said something about Windows not being able to install properly and that I should restart for the installation to continue or something around those lines. And restart I did. When I got to the file extraction part, it would not advance past 0%. That being the case, I set the HDD up as a mass storage device on my computer and deleted the drive then created a new drive from the unallocated space. I did all that using Partition Wizard 10. Afterwards, I installed Windows 10 (since my friend had already left by the time I've formatted the drive and took the Win7 stick with him). The error that told me to restart to continue the installation appeared again and I restarted. This time it did finish the installation after the restart but now the dang thing freezes when I try to boot. I did not set Windows up since I could not get to that point. It freezes right in the middle of the initial boot. Does anyone have any idea what is happening? If so, how can I fix this issue? Thanks!

[Gameking002]

BIOS set up properly?

[Introvert_Monk]

15 minutes ago, Gameking002 said:

BIOS set up properly?

The only setting in my BIOS that could affect the boot (at least from my knowledge) is the boot speed, which is set to normal. The HDD also is the first in the boot priority. Can you please explain in more detail? If there is some other setting that affects the boot, I would like to learn of it. Also, if it helps, I am trying to install ubuntu on it right now and it seems to be stuck on the wi-fi connection screen, which I got to by selecting install ubuntu on the first screen. I did format the drive using the same method described in my initial post before trying to install ubuntu. 

 

EDIT: I did pass the wi-fi select screen but it took a lot of time to load. Seems like it will take just as long for the current screen.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Introvert_Monk

[MrMarriarty]

16 minutes ago, Introvert_Monk said:

I did all that using Partition Wizard 10

Cringe!

 

If your sure the drive is ok and not defective, set the partition and drive up within the windows installer not Partition Wizard 10

 

[Introvert_Monk]

3 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

Cringe!

 

If your sure the drive is ok and not defective, set the partition and drive up within the windows installer not Partition Wizard 10

 

What is the problem with that software? I did try to use windows installer but it did not work that way.

[Introvert_Monk]

4 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

Cringe!

 

If your sure the drive is ok and not defective, set the partition and drive up within the windows installer not Partition Wizard 10

 

I know that I can use that to format drives but the 0% error was persisting. That is why I tried PW10.

[MrMarriarty]

Its just not the correct way to manage your disk the partitions your creating may not be what you think they are... GPT, MBR, etc

 

in an ideal situation you should be using "diskpart" in CMD

 

What i think you should be asking is why the windows installer is not formating the drive coreectly and not using something else to skirt around the problem.

 

can you put the drive in another PC and use diskpart?

 

EDIT - I think the disk is bad

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Introvert_Monk]

15 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

Its just not the correct way to manage your disk the partitions your creating may not be what you think they are... GPT, MBR, etc

 

in an ideal situation you should be using "diskpart" in CMD

 

What i think you should be asking is why the windows installer is not formating the drive coreectly and not using something else to skirt around the problem.

 

can you put the drive in another PC and use diskpart?

 

EDIT - I think the disk is bad

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only PC I can work with is my personal laptop. Judging from what I tried, the drive can be used as a mass storage device. The problem is that it freezes if I try to boot from it. Ubuntu also takes a very long time to get past each screen. Can the thing be too old to be bootable? My friend did not mistreat it from what I know. I will try to use diskpart and see if it can solve my issue. 

[MrMarriarty]

11 minutes ago, Introvert_Monk said:

The only PC I can work with is my personal laptop. Judging from what I tried, the drive can be used as a mass storage device. The problem is that it freezes if I try to boot from it. Ubuntu also takes a very long time to get past each screen. Can the thing be too old to be bootable? My friend did not mistreat it from what I know. I will try to use diskpart and see if it can solve my issue. 

to do it on the laptop thats not working, when the installer first loads

 

Troubleshoot--->Advanced Options--->Command Prompt

 

Then:

 

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

exit

 

go through the installer again and it should if the disk is ok let Windows handle the drive

[Introvert_Monk]

15 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

to do it on the laptop thats not working, when the installer first loads

 

Troubleshoot--->Advanced Options--->Command Prompt

 

Then:

 

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

exit

 

go through the installer again and it should if the disk is ok let Windows handle the drive

Ok. I will try that. Thank you!

[Introvert_Monk]

48 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

to do it on the laptop thats not working, when the installer first loads

 

Troubleshoot--->Advanced Options--->Command Prompt

 

Then:

 

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

exit

 

go through the installer again and it should if the disk is ok let Windows handle the drive

Ok. I did what you told me to and when I got to installing it, it returned an error saying that windows could not firmat the partition correctly and it gave me this error code: 0x80070057.

i googled the error code and found a fix (delete both partitions created by windows and click new, then format partition 2 a second time). I tried the fix and it still returned the same error. I guess that this means that the disk is bad, right? 

[MrMarriarty]

1 minute ago, Introvert_Monk said:

Ok. I did what you told me to and when I got to installing it, it returned an error saying that windows could not firmat the partition correctly and it gave me this error code: 0x80070057.

i googled the error code and found a fix (delete both partitions created by windows and click new, then format partition 2 a second time). I tried the fix and it still returned the same error. I guess that this means that the disk is bad, right? 

does sound like it, you can try and create a smaller partition manually in diskpart, you might get lucky and clip the bad bit of the disk let me know if you want assistance with that, but drives are cheap!

[Introvert_Monk]

15 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

does sound like it, you can try and create a smaller partition manually in diskpart, you might get lucky and clip the bad bit of the disk let me know if you want assistance with that, but drives are cheap!

Drives really are not that cheap where I live (relative to salaries). They are very close to msrp, but the msrp of a HDD still is about 20-25% of a averege guy's monthly income over here. I think I can figure out how to partition a drive with diskpart. But it would be greatly appreciated if you know how I can find the bad bit. Maybe something like rufus or ccleaner can help? I know that at least rufus can scan for bad blocks. And my laptop also has 2 drive bays so using those programs will not be a problem.

[MrMarriarty]

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

create partition primary size=5120             (we are going to take 5gb out of the equasion)

assign letter=x                                            (going to call it X so we can clearly see which one not to use)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

create partition primary size=61440

assign letter=c

format fs=ntfs quick label=Win7

exit

 

in the windows install tell windows to use drive c: which should be named Win7 and a size of 60gb

 

if it works and thats an if, you need to advise your friend he needs to start thinking about a new disk in the not so distant future

[Introvert_Monk]

3 minutes ago, MrMarriarty said:

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

create partition primary size=5120             (we are going to take 5gb out of the equasion)

assign letter=x                                            (going to call it X so we can clearly see which one not to use)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

create partition primary size=61440

assign letter=c

format fs=ntfs quick label=Win7

exit

 

in the windows install tell windows to use drive c: which should be named Win7 and a size of 60gb

 

if it works and thats an if, you need to advise your friend he needs to start thinking about a new disk in the not so distant future

Thank you! I will try that.

[Introvert_Monk]

12 hours ago, MrMarriarty said:

diskpart

list disk (From the list take note of the disk number)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

clean

create partition primary size=5120             (we are going to take 5gb out of the equasion)

assign letter=x                                            (going to call it X so we can clearly see which one not to use)

select disk *<--- your disk number here so prob disk 0

create partition primary size=61440

assign letter=c

format fs=ntfs quick label=Win7

exit

 

in the windows install tell windows to use drive c: which should be named Win7 and a size of 60gb

 

if it works and thats an if, you need to advise your friend he needs to start thinking about a new disk in the not so distant future

I partitioned the HDD like you said and it ended up working. Windows 7 boots without a problem and the computer moves fairly fast. Thank you very much for your assistance!