Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit woes

[stevenrw]

Head scratching time chaps...

I have an old machine that I've been using with XP and I finally bit the bullet and installed W7 Home Premium 32 bit.
I put this on a completely separate HDD in the machine and obviously set the W7 as the boot drive.

This was a clean install having fully reformatted the HD.

All installed ok, including (after a struggle) all 200 or so updates.

Now, sometime it boots OK, and other times it sticks on the black "Starting Windows" screen.

If I do a hard reboot from the stalled "Starting Windows" screen and select "Start Windows Normally" rather than startup repair most time it boots into Windows without issue.

I've checked the drivers are up to date on the graphics card, and my old Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 drivers are the latest. (Although, interestingly the AutoUpdater on the Creative Labs support page seems to think the system is Vista and won't do it automatically, so I download manually)

I've also done a memory check using the repair tools on the windows disc and run WD data lifeguard and all seems ok hardware-wise.

So, in essence, sometimes it starts, sometimes it doesn't. I'm at a loss where to look next. I've reinstalled W7 twice with the same result, although in truth I really couldn't say what drivers were installed each time.

So, any suggestions chaps?

[Glenn]

What happens if you remove the XP drive?

[stevenrw]

Hello Glenn
first it wouldn't boot, then it did, with a dialogue box "Windows has recovered etcetc" files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\052414-22765-01.dmp
C:\Windows\Richard\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-37734-0.sysdata.xlm

Dunno if that helps?

[Glenn]

Those files will be stored on the pc hard drive. Is there anything obvious in the event log?

[stevenrw]

Had a look in the Event log (I'd forgotten all about that feature, so thanks for reminding me Glenn), and whilst a lot of it looks like gibberish to me, I did see something about HDD controller and drive "J".
Drive J looked to be one of the slots on the card reader, and it just so happens that I use a USB port on that reader for my wireless adapter.
So I moved the wireless adapter to a port round the back and the machine booted up.
I've uninstalled it and (touch wood) all seems to be working fine now.
I've been using that card reader and usb port for years under XP, so why it suddenly decides it doesnt like it under W7 suggests the latest drivers which W7 installed automatically are rubbish.
Anyway, I can live without it. Lets hope that's the end of it.
Thanks Glenn as always, for taking the time to assist, I really appreciate it

[pctech]

USB devices can sometimes cause Windows to stall as they can be slow to respond to hardware enumeration (detection) which happens when you see the starting Windows screen.

How old is the wireless adapter?

[stevenrw]

Its probably a couple of years old now, its one of those tiny Edimax Nano jobbies and I have to say I've been pretty impressed. Its every bit as good as my much larger (much more expensive) Netgear WNDA3100v2, albeit 150 compared to 300 but that's largely academic with my attainable speed. Now W7 is working properly on my old machine it picks up the signal and connects pretty much immediately.