Win7 fails to boot, BSOD, safe boot freezes at disk.sys

[bojan_vladek]

Windows 7 suddenly decided not to boot. Everything was working normal in the morning. I shut it down before going to work (and I think a windows update was recently downloaded). In the evening I came home, booted the machine up, and it wouldn't boot. It gets stuck at the exact moment before Windows 7 flash loading screen with that colorful thingies spin and make the Windows logo. After getting stuck (which is less than half a second) I see a flash of a bluescreen but I can't read it, it instantly resets. After reset, the same cycle begins. Mobo logo, if nothing pressed then black dash for half a second, then boot logo, blue screen flash, reset. After 30 something tries, I managed to take a photo of the code which reads: *** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A97E8, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)

System specs:
- i5 4690k cpu
- R9 290 gpu
- 16 GB kingston ram
- samsung 850 evo ssd (boot drive)
- 2 other WD caviar blue hdds
- windows 7 64bit

Things I have tried:
- Safe boot: Doesn't work, gets stuck after (or while) loading disk.sys
- Removed all drives except ssd: Nothing changed
- Tried different SATA cable brand new: No effect
- Tried switching SATA port on mobo: No effect
- Connected ssd and other drives to another PC at home: Drives are fine, I can see the contents and interact with them (haven't tried booting from the ssd in that other PC yet)
- Nothing at F8 seems to work -> safe boot, debugging, log enabling, registry fixing, etc. tried every single option with the exact same result, freezing, flashing me a blue screen of death and resetting, only to repeat this.

Please note, this SSD is brand new. It's not even a month old and I have used it until now without a single problem whatsoever. You should also know I cloned my system drive from an HDD onto this SSD (if that matters). But the system was running without problems as well.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Note: I do not have a windows 7 disk, and I would like to avoid having to get one unless that is the only option left.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Did you reset or update BIOS ?
0x0000007B error usually is because of sata controller mode being changed.

 

[bojan_vladek]

SkyNetRising thanks for getting back to me. Not not to my knowledge, I haven't done such a thing. You are right, I have come across a couple other threads in various websites with the same error code resulting from sata controller change.

Get this though, I was just fooling around in the Bios and switched the AIHC to IDE. And Bam! The Windows boots. Absolutely fantastic. This happened 10 minutes ago. Then get this, being happy with what just happened, I decide to close the case up and put it back in its place, I do that, and Bam! Windows suddenly won't boot again with the exact same freezing behavior. Then I switch IDE back to SATA, then to AIHC, with no avail. Then I open the case, tinker with it in no specific way. Try booting...Bam! Windows boots. I am not kidding in the least bit. Right now I am writing this response from that successfully booted PC. But I am scared to close the case! Or even restart the PC for it might choose not to boot again.

I have no idea why this happens or whether it will happen again, and I am reluctant to mark this thread as resolved. You know anything more about that controller thing? I haven't changed it, I haven't even touched Bios in like forever. I didn't touch anything inside the case either, like disks or anything.

I remembered something if it helps, one of my hdds had started acting up. I had recently formatted it and was not using it for anything yet. Then one day it started not showing up in Windows. I tried sticking it into a cloning device, and the device didn't recognize it. I heard no power sounds either, it looks dead. It's only a 5 year old WD blue, I don't see how it would suddenly die. Any thoughts? Sorry my thoughts are all over the place, I really don't understand computer hardware!

 

[SkyNetRising]

How many drives are there?
Can you post screenshot from Disk Management? and Hdtune health section for all drives?

 

[bojan_vladek]

Hey SkyNetRising, here are the screenshots you requested. There are actually 4 drives in total. 1 SSD, 2 WD HDDs, 1 WD external. But there is no screenshot of one of the HDDs because the PC doesn't recognize it. The cloning device I mentioned earlier didn't recognize it either. I think it's effectively dead.

Disk management, sorry it's in Turkish:
https://pasteboard.co/GPmlAHF.jpg

SSD health section:
https://pasteboard.co/GPmlUeK.jpg

HDD health section:
https://pasteboard.co/GPmm5yO.png

External WD health section:
https://pasteboard.co/GPmmez5.jpg

So the other drives seem crystal clear except for a single line at the SSD, which HD Tune suggests might be caused by a cable. But I tried different cables; I tried a relatively new sata cable, an absolutely brand new one, and an older one that used to be inside the case. All of them seem to cause the boot process to behave this way.

And I did not shut down or restart since last night, out of fear.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Remove the dead drive from system.
It probably is causing all those troubles.

 

[johnbl]

motherboard button battery can die, they last for about 5 years. when the battery dies, the saved setting go back to defaults. older system had a default sata mode of ide mode. replacing the battery should fix the problem. Note: your system time will be wrong when the battery fails.

 

[bojan_vladek]

Remove the dead drive from system.
It probably is causing all those troubles.

Thanks for keeping getting back to me. I removed it and the system still gets stuck randomly. There were times where it did successfully boot after removing that drive, but there were times it failed too. Also, there were successful boots with it still attached. It looks like it doesn't have to do with that.

motherboard button battery can die, they last for about 5 years. when the battery dies, the saved setting go back to defaults. older system had a default sata mode of ide mode. replacing the battery should fix the problem. Note: your system time will be wrong when the battery fails.

Thanks for the advice. Actually the motherboard is almost exactly around that age. What is this battery? Where can I find it? Local PC stores don't seem to advertise it much. What does it look like? I never had to buy such a thing.

 

[johnbl]

they looks like small button batteries https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=vbLU%2fYnE&id=A7699A38696392C58A6DC3C7018FC1F39B31A379&thid=OIP.vbLU_YnELMIo96OEXU5pCQEsC3&q=motherboard+battery+photo&simid=608036486094786353&selectedIndex=3

Remove the dead drive from system.
It probably is causing all those troubles.

Thanks for keeping getting back to me. I removed it and the system still gets stuck randomly. There were times where it did successfully boot after removing that drive, but there were times it failed too. Also, there were successful boots with it still attached. It looks like it doesn't have to do with that.

motherboard button battery can die, they last for about 5 years. when the battery dies, the saved setting go back to defaults. older system had a default sata mode of ide mode. replacing the battery should fix the problem. Note: your system time will be wrong when the battery fails.

Thanks for the advice. Actually the motherboard is almost exactly around that age. What is this battery? Where can I find it? Local PC stores don't seem to advertise it much. What does it look like? I never had to buy such a thing.