Fresh Windows Install Freezes at "Windows Starting" Screen

[KingBubba]

I have a t60p that has exhibited some very strange behavior and I cannot seem to work it out alone. I was hoping that somewhere on this forum there might be an answer. I have searched the t60 forum and cannot find anything that resembles this issue. The first issue is the fact that the t60 will suddenly just shut itself to sleep mode. Try to restore to the desktop becomes impossible with a hard shutdown the only way to stop the cycle. For most of this computers habit of this behavior, I was guessing that it was a hard drive issue or a windows flaw of some sort. The other issue at hand is when booting, Windows will hang at the screen wher the little colored dots become the Windows symbol. I get the words "Window Starting" and I can see one tiny little dot of color and then everything stops. On the hard restart I get the choice of repair startup or start Windows. If I choose the repair, I can sometimes get back to the desktop. Sometimes if I restart Windows, it will get to the desktop, sometimes not. The inconsistency is infuriating.

Today I decide to find out for once and for all to discover what this issue was. I had two used drives that were wiped and reformatted. I also had a brand new drive available. I installed Windows 7 on each drive starting with the used drives first and followed up with the brand new drive. In all cases, the fresh Windows install would stall at the same spot. This leads to the conclusion that this is not a hard drive issue. This version of Win 7 loads and operates fine on my other t60, t400s and t500s. This issue is the t60p. It is not the memory because I have done swaps with other working Thinkpads and run Memtest on all memory with proper results. I took the drives and put them in a regular t60 and they operate just fine. It has a busy and frustrating day. If anyone has experienced any such thing as this of can shed any light on this issue, I would be appreciative of any assistance.

[RealBlackStuff]

If all drives stop with the same error after a fresh install, could it not be a faulty W7-source, like bad CD/DVD/USB-stick?
Does the BIOS have Slic2.1?

If you need a new motherboard: http://theboardroom.info/stock.html

[KingBubba]

I have installed Win7 on about ten drives in the last two month setting up a family gift to all the grandkids. This t60p is the only laptop that reacts this way. I tried to update the bios, but it stated the bios was already up to date. right now I am running one of the drives in a t60 and it is acting normal and has no issues.

[TankPad]

I have installed Win7 on about ten drives in the last two month setting up a family gift to all the grandkids. This t60p is the only laptop that reacts this way. I tried to update the bios, but it stated the bios was already up to date. right now I am running one of the drives in a t60 and it is acting normal and has no issues.

Were you using a BIOS update utility and it simply said you're on the latest version? Can it boot in safe mode?
You could get/make an img of the latest BIOS and boot from it, overwriting the existing one. So you know the drives are good, and the Windows iso has been shown to work. Might there be an issue with the RAM, and do you have any sticks you can test in it to eliminate it as a possibility?

Also, don't always take the memory test results as gospel. I have 16GB of DDR3 formerly from my X220 that passed the test many times, yet still fails intermittently when used.

[KingBubba]

I have quite a number of t60s and I have swapped and tested my [censored] off. Memory from machines that have no issues have been swapped from at least 5 different t60s. The memory from the t60p works fine elsewhere. This is not a memory issue.

I attempted to update the bios with the utility which informed me that the bios was up to date. The question about safe mode is a good one and I tried using the f8 to enter the screen with the choices. f8 does not work with Win7. You have to start safe mode from msconfig, which I can't get to, because I can't get to the desktop. The next time I am able to get to the desktop, I will setup msconfig to enter safe mode and see what happens. Thanks for a suggestion I did not consider.

I can't somehow connect this failure to boot, to the desktop, to memory issues. It is too consistent. it stops at exactly the same spot every time. I wish I knew what part of the boot process was happening at that exact moment, but there is no way to find that out. I ran a Linux live cd and had no trouble getting to the Linux desktop. This is definitely a Windows issue, but it has to be hardware related. I thought about swapping the CPU with one of the other t60s. What does anyone out there feel about this idea? The other idea I had was it heat related, except I can shutdown the laptop down until cool and it still won't get past that spot.

I am open to any ideas. Thanks for the responses.

[RealBlackStuff]

FYI: F8 for the boot-menu DOES work, you just have to keep hitting it a number of times immediately after you press the power button.

If you have done so many T60 installs, why don't you take an "installed" drive from any of the other T60 machines, and put that in the T60p?
That should work OOTB, unless there is a hardware problem in the T60p...

[theterminator93]

I'll just throw this out there because I thought it hardware/software related too the first time I saw it... but...

On some PCs at work (at least 3 different models so far), when I am loading a fresh copy of Windows 7 on them to build an image from, the Windows "loading files" bar across the bottom completely loads. Then once it flips to the "Starting Windows" screen, it will seemingly hang for 2-3 minutes. Then eventually, the animated Windows graphic will appear, and it will hang for another 2-3 minutes. After this, setup and operation continue normally...

It may or may not be relevant to your situation, but I figured I'd throw it out there, at the very least.

[KingBubba]

I'll try and let it sit. Who knows, that might be it. Thanks. The issue of swapping drives from known working drives does not work, yet I can take a drive from the t60p and it will work in the other drives just fine. Thanks.