Computer freezes on HP splash screen

F

froghunter

New Member
I have a HP Pavilion a6305.uk and I have recently been having problems when booting up. When I turn it on, it freezes on the blue HP splash screen and I cannot press any keys to access the BIOS etc. I then have to turn it off manually and back on again. The problem repeats usually about 5-10 times until it finally boots to Windows.

When it does, it often gets to the Windows 7 'starting up' screen but then the computer makes a clicking noise and switches back to the HP splash screen. It then prompts me to enter startup repair (which I have tried and doesn't solve the problem) or resume booting to Windows. When I choose the second option, it finally boots to Windows and I can log on.

This is becoming very frustrating... any ideas?
 
Unhook the data and power cables to the hard drive and see if it will let you boot to the bios. If so, then you have a failing hard drive and it needs to be replaced.
 
Just unplugged hard drive and I was then able to access the BIOS. I had a look at some of the settings on there and it appears that the CD drive was set as the first boot device rather than the hard drive, so I changed this. I also turned on the diagnostic screen so it shows up on boot. Plugged my computer back in and it booted straight to Windows - not sure what resolved it but it worked! Thanks for your help.
 
Doesn't matter if cd or hdd was set as first boot device unless you have an issue with the cdrom drive. Keep an eye on it, if it still does it then there is an issue somewhere.
 
This has happened to me before. It typically happened when the computer was incorrectly shutdown. When this happened to me, I reseated the RAM, and that solved the issue.
 
It appears I spoke too soon - just turned my computer on after it being shut down overnight and it froze again 4 times before it booted to Windows. If it is a hard drive problem then how come I can access Windows at all?
 
Most likely an intermittent hard drive issue. I wouldn't be using the system anymore until you figure this out, better start backing up your data before you are too late and lose it all.
 
thats why most of us have 2 or more harddrives and/or a usb thumb drive.
if one harddrive goes bad we switch to the other one. I have 3 harddrives,
#1 as my main harddrive and has windows
#2 also has windows and used if #1 goes bad
#3 used to store backup data
plus thumbdrive to store pictures just in case
 
I have a large external hard drive so I'll back up my data asap. Is there any way to test the hard drive to be sure that is the problem and, if there is one, what it might be?
 
You would need to know the brand of hard drive it is and then download their drive diagnostic utility.
 
Thanks - I've just run the Seatools diagnostics quick scan and it says there isn't a problem but I will run the full scan later as I am now sure that the hard drive is failing as you suggested, after a boot disk failure and strange clicking sounds coming from the hard drive. How would you suggest I back up my data to switch to a new hard drive, as surely just using Windows backup only copies files and not the operating system itself? i.e. is there a way to transfer Windows 7 to another hard drive?
 
If the drive is failing, you won't want to transfer the OS to another drive, you would want to do a fresh install of windows. If the drive is fine then you will need to look elsewhere as you could have hardware issues.
 
I used "Acronis True Image" to copy a whole hardrive(including windows) to another hardrive, it is free and worked fast, I coppied from a hardrive that was slow and making noises to a better hardrive. I did this with windows xp pro and not much else on the drive, so it would take longer if you have windows 7 and other stuff. Also if the files on your old harddrive has errors on them,those errors might also be on the new harddrive until the files are fixed.
 
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