Windows 7 won't boot even in safe mode

[Patrick Bateman]

Was performing a system restore from within safe mode as the latest nvidia drivers were giving me issues. When restarting though something must have happened and I got the BSOD.

This now always happens after the windows loading logo and if I try and boot in safe mode it's stuck with the mouse cursor and a black screen.

Using the windows disc I installed with to try and do a repair says that it's not compatible with the installed windows.

I can't seem to get the advanced boot screen where the option to repair windows shows, all I have is the three safe modes and start windows normally as a choice.

Any suggestions?

[colin79666]

If the PC has onboard graphics try taking the Nvidia card out and booting it.

[Patrick Bateman]

I don't think it does. Currently away from home so will double check.

[Patrick Bateman]

Any other suggestions without removing hardware?

[Scobblelotcher]

Have you tried last known good configuration? Do you have a recovery disk?

[Patrick Bateman]

No recovery disk. Last known good configuration doesn't show, it's the three safe modes and start windows normally.

Don't know why my windows disk won't work.

[Patrick Bateman]

Right, managed to get into windows, safe mode is now no problem. The graphics keep crashing though despite having fully removed existing drivers and re-installing with the latest ones as well as trying older drivers too. See here-

https://youtu.be/lvWXp_RYSGM

[Scobblelotcher]

When I saw that I was split between faulty graphics card or driver although taking into account booting normally causes issues makes me think it’s far more likely driver related.

If you want to completely rule out drivers then you could boot to a Linux distro off USB and see if you have the same issues.

[Patrick Bateman]

Not sure what you mean by that exactly but I'm assuming that won't be possible.

If it was only driver related would you not expect some difference between using the latest and the oldest available drivers?

[WinstonWolf]

Patrick Bateman said:

Right, managed to get into windows, safe mode is now no problem. The graphics keep crashing though despite having fully removed existing drivers and re-installing with the latest ones as well as trying older drivers too. See here-

https://youtu.be/lvWXp_RYSGM

Can you run System Restore to a point in time before it started?

[TonyRPH]

That looks like failed / failing RAM on the graphics card to me.

Do you get the little blocks right after a cold switch on, or does it take a little while?

[Patrick Bateman]

WinstonWolf said:

Patrick Bateman said:

Right, managed to get into windows, safe mode is now no problem. The graphics keep crashing though despite having fully removed existing drivers and re-installing with the latest ones as well as trying older drivers too. See here-

https://youtu.be/lvWXp_RYSGM

Can you run System Restore to a point in time before it started?

Tried and it hasn't worked.

Come to think of it I think I may have seen the odd block artifact in recent weeks but never thought anything of it. Pretty sure it seemed better initially when I turned it on yesterday, I'll see what it's like when I get in tonight.

[Patrick Bateman]

Crashed just over 2 minutes after logging into windows from cold. Got a BSOD on the second attempt of starting. Safe mode is still fine.

System restore only lists a few entries possible from earlier this month, I noticed when I scanned for affected programs it showed the nvidia graphics driver as all being the same for each restore point, even for before Friday when it all went properly on the blink.

I have overclocked the CPU but that was a while ago now, is it safe to assume that's unlikely to contribute to this issue? It's not a ridiculous OC, 4.1GHz on an i5 2500k, was stable in all benchmarking tests.

[Patrick Bateman]

Well I've spent the last 5 hours tearing my hair out but seem to finally be ok. Appears to indeed be a knackered graphics card. Ended up getting artifcats all over the screen as soon as the bios was up and was getting progressively worse.

Didn't realise this processor has on board graphics so finally got this working. Was initially having bother getting any display at all then all I got was a black screen and a flashing cursor after the bios for ages. Many attempts later it appears to be sound...