I've recently been having a problem with my Windows 8 Pro installation. Every time I reboot (but only after using the computer), Windows will hang at the splash screen, with the spinner continuing forever. If I force a shutdown by holding down the power button (my only option), on the next boot Windows will try and fail to launch an automatic repair. Usually it hangs on the "Preparing Automatic Repair" screen, but occasionally it gets further and reaches a black screen. Either way, automatic repair hasn't started after about half an hour and I turn it off. The first time this happened, I think it managed to reach automatic repair, which failed. Neither system restore nor refresh worked, but I can't remember the error. I used my other Windows 8 PC to make a recovery USB stick. I can boot into that. Automatic repair fails, as do system restore and refresh. I can get into the command line, though. I found instructions online recommending the following commands: Code: bootrec /fixmbr bootrec /fixboot bootrec /rebuildBCD chkdsk /r (another recommended /f, but I know /r includes that) Running the first three commands on their own does not help the situation. Fixboot and rebuildBCD both report that what the recovery stick considers D:\ (my main Windows partition) either has a corrupted file system or a hardware fault. Chkdsk either reports that there are no errors, or tells me that it could not write the log to the event log. /f, I think, does not work, but /r allows me to boot into Windows 8. So after running Code: chkdsk /r , and leaving it anywhere from 1 to 4 hours to run, I can boot into Windows. I haven't yet tested whether the chkdsk fixes the problem without running the bootrec commands. Once I'm in Windows it's fine. No obvious errors, although I don't know whether I should run any commands while in Windows. The next problem is that it freezes every 30 minutes or so (the time varies) for around a minute. As you can imagine, that's not much fun when playing games. I can tell it's not completely frozen because I can move the mouse and Skype calls continue in the background. It's not the act of rebooting that kills it either - I rebooted three times after one fix, and could still log in and use the PC. So that's as much as I can think of for now - I have a fully functional Xubuntu install working right now, so I'm set for now. Of course, running Code: bootrec /fixmbr breaks the Linux disk's GRUB install in the MBR, but that's fixable. I also have a 1TB WD Blue waiting to reinstall Windows on if I have to. Current hardware: Corsair CX500 (pretty much brand new, as my previous cheap one died, which could well have damaged the HDD for all I know). Asus mATX board (can't remember the model number - I can get it if you need it) AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 2x2GB Corsair RAM (whatever their cheapest range is called) Palit Radeon 4870 320GB Seagate Barracuda (old) - the Windows disk 500GB Seagate Barracuda (newish) - the Linux disk I can't think of any more details to give you, as I'm starting to fall asleep. Just ask for whatever details I've forgotten. I'm basically suspecting it's either something wrong with the Windows install, or just a faulty HDD. Either way, a full reinstall is probably the best way to go.
As above. Also change the sata cable for a new one as these evil things don't last forever. (Just incase)
Great, I'll give Seatools a try after backing up my data to another HDD. Whether it passes or fails I might as well use my 1TB disk.
Just to add to what others have said, it maybe worth testing your RAM. I had what i thought to be HDD problems but it turned out to be a faulty stick writing bad data to the drive.
