Computer not able to boot up.

[o0Slickman0o]

While using my computer, the power in my room went out (I do have surge protectors). Most likely because of hurricane Sandy. Shortly after, the power can back on, and I attempted to boot up my computer. The PC turns on (power), it shows me the motherboard screen (from where I can enter my Bios), then asks my if I want to resume normal boot up or launch repairs. I click on boot up normally, it thinks a little, shows me the Windows logo, and then immediately restarts. Every time.
I tried repairs, but it says that it can not find a solution (like always lol). I then tried system restore, but that failed too to my surprise, giving me "rstrui.exe - application error". This leads me to believe that my HDD failed, but then again, what do I know lol. I tried the clear CMOS thing, but that failed too. Any Ideas guys? I have limited knowledge of these things, so bear with me here.

Thank you. (New to Rock, Paper, Shotgun so hello everyone)

Edit:
Tested the hard drive on another computer and it seems to be working fine. Computer still not booting up however.

[The Tupper]

I had a similar problem last year. Somewhat unwisely (considering I know very little and was a bit drunk) I self-diagnosed the Master Boot Record as being damaged and used a command prompt to fix it. I'm sorry but I can't remember how I got to the diagnosis (purely google-based) or even the steps I took to bring up the command prompt, but it sorted the problem out.

[squirrel]

My experience is that a temporary disconnection from power source may trigger some problems if, say, ram's connection is corrupted. My solution is to unplug then replug the rams again.

[Sparkasaurusmex]

Reseating RAM might help, yeah.
Make sure your BIOS clock isn't way off, that can cause problems. Also make sure your bios didn't default to RAID or something you don't have set up. That would cause exactly this.

[o0Slickman0o]

I tried reseating RAM, that did not seem to help.
I entered my BIOD and checked things out. The clocks seem fine, most of the things are set to auto. I also checked the "storage Configurations" and the "Configure SATA as" is set to IDE (other options are RAID, and AHCI)
Unfortunately the computer still reaches the windows logo, waits a little, and then immediately restarts.

[slick_101]

do you have another machine that you can plug the hard drive into to test if the File system is still working properly?

[Feldspar]

If you're getting as far as the Windows logo then I'd imagine it's either a software problem (maybe Windows was updating a file when the power cut out, or it's just plain buggered up) or something hardware is just not booting up fast enough (blown capacitor or something electronicky).

If it's the latter, then it should boot properly the second or third time if you leave the power on (I think this is unlikely).

If it's the former then it might mean a Windows reinstall, sorry.

[slick_101]

As Feldspar said, what you could do is you could just grab your install disk and do a windows repair?

[bad guy]

Have you tried kicking the computer?

[o0Slickman0o]

Ill attempt the OS reinstall and come back to you guys.

[trjp]

Assuming this is W7, your plan of attack should be (echoing other people's comments too)

1 - check that the CMOS Date/Time is correct - and that other settings haven't been scrambled (HDD ACPI/IDE is a good one for stopping Windows loading and many BIOSes fallback to IDE)
2 - Boot - hammer F8 - select safe mode (with network) and see if that will startup OK. If it will, start an admin-level CMD prompt and enter "sfc /checknow" which will check all your system files for consistency.
3 - get your Windows Install Disc and boot from that - goto the 'Repair' option and see what it offers - if it detects no problem you can forget your MBR or other issues like that because it's quite good at spotting and fixing those (tho it often takes 2-3 attempts to get it to work) - put it to one side tho, you'll need it again soon

It's at this point you need access to another PC - because you need to download and make

1 - a MEMCHECK boot disc to test your RAM - leave that running for an hour-or-2
2 - connect your HDD to the new PC and run a full and through SCANDISK and see what comes back from that OR
3 - make a HD DIagnositics disc and run that on your PC/HDD (the manuf's own tools preferably, SeaTools if you can't find those).

If your memory and HDD come back AOK then you've got a corrupt file stopping Windows from loading - the next step is to get that install disc back and to a 'repair install'. It's one of the options when you goto install W7 - it replaces all the key system files and will get your system booting again 9 times out of 10 WITHOUT removing programs and data.

It may back-out Service Packs and Windows Updates tho - which can leave some programs unable to run until Windows Update realises this and re-applies them.

Good Luck!

p.s. a few general things to try in this situation include

Remove and reseat EVERYTHING - RAM, Discs the lot (inside your PC)
Remove ALL USB devices (their drivers won't be loaded if they're not connected)
If you have an onboard GPU, remove your PCI GPU and try that
Same as above for soundcard

Basically you want to 'trick' windows into booting somehow :)

[o0Slickman0o]

I did a fresh install of windows 7 and everything seems to be working great.
Thank you to all who helped!

[Nathan]

You should make sure of your boot option from your boot option by going to your bios setup and go to the advance options and select boot and make HDD as your first boot drive if you have already this setting then i think you have no need to make more bootable to your system