I can only boot my computer in Safe mode this morning and when I try use System Restore to recover from a previous restore point there are none.Checking Windows Update reveals that no updates were installed in the last day or 2.Problem Reports and Solutions indicates numerous 'old - unresolved' issues but none that would 'appear' to keep the system from booting.What next?

What happens when you boot your computer normally? Do you get a BSOD with an immediate reboot? If so, while in safe mode, right-click Computer, select properties, select Advanced System Settings. Click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section located on the Advanced tab and uncheck the Automatically restart option so you can read your particular error. Also, while in safe mode, go to Computer Management and check your Application and System logs under Event Viewer. Your crashes should be listed there along with additional detail. As a troubleshooting method, while in safe mode, type msconfig.exe at the Start Menu search dialog box or in the Run dialog box. At the General tab, select Diagnostic startup and reboot. If your system comes up, then you can narrow it down via trial and error. If not, you have other issues probably related to incompatible drivers. As for system restore, either it is turned off or you have done a disk cleanup at one time that delete your restore points. You will need to investigate that matter once you are able to boot normally.

I do not get a BSOD. It either 'freezes' immediately after I enter my password, displaying "Welcome" in the middle of the screen and the "activity icon/circle" continues to spin even though there is no disk activity lights or it will boot all the way to a 'normal' desktop but again the cursor is 'frozen' and there is no disk activity. The only recourse at that point is to do a hardware reboot.The Event Viewer only shows activity as relates to Office, mostly Outlook and most are Info entries. No indication of software or hardware failure at all.I was able to boot using the Diagnostic startup option but pretty much all 'Services' were Stopped or Disabled so I am not sure where to go from there as pretty much nothing 'works' though I do have a mouse and keyboard.I have not intentionately turned off system restore, it has been working as I have set a restore point a few times when installing apps and/or updates.I do notice that I have an "Unknown Device" now that I did not have or notice before. I don't know how to determine what it may be. The 'normal' devices like video, disk, sound, network, etc are all there and working.Is there a way to do a 'step by step' boot or a way to create a boot log that would show where it is failing?I did notice that the system 'freezes' immediately after the gadgets/sidebar was loaded but turning that off using msconfig did not help.It is a dual boot system using Vista Home Premium and I am not having any issues there, fwiw.To reiterate, the system was working fine yesterday when I left it (it stays on 24/7) so I am pretty much at a loss.Thanks.

Hi HalBaker: RE: unknown device. You might try opening Device Manager and right-click that device and select uninstall, re-boot and see if Win7 will re-install a working driver. It might since the device was not showing up prior to the start of your problems.

Yes I tried that but I never see the 'New hardware found' messages when re-booting. Of course I am still not sure how far along the actual boot process is before it locks up.Thanks

How about uninstalling the unknown device in Device Manager in safe mode and then still in safe mode (with networking) see if it can find an update online?

Probably a dumb question but is there a way to Print an 'expanded' Device Manager? The idea being that I can 'see' all of the devices in Vista and if I could print that view I could then compare it to Windows 7 to try and determine the 'unknown' device.Thanks

newnerd said: How about uninstalling the unknown device in Device Manager in safe mode and then still in safe mode (with networking) see if it can find an update online? Did that, still no joy. When comparing the items in device manager for Vista and W7, the only difference I can see is that I have Acronis installed in Vista but not in W7. When checking the Properties of the Unknown device the Hardware Ids displaysACPI\AWY0001*AWY001Comparing the W7 & Vista devices that have ACPI shows they are the same.The last known driver update was to the display adapter and even though that was 2-3 days ago I am going to roll it back and see what happens.Thanks

Hi again HalBaker: You could open the Device Manager, expand all devices then click start, type "snipping tool" and select "rectangle" and use the mouse to go around as much as you can get and then do it again a couple times if necessary to get a screen shot of each portion of the device manage and save each "shot" to compare with Vista.

newnerd said: Hi again HalBaker: You could open the Device Manager, expand all devices then click start, type "snipping tool" and select "rectangle" and use the mouse to go around as much as you can get and then do it again a couple times if necessary to get a screen shot of each portion of the device manage and save each "shot" to compare with Vista.I did the SHIFT-Print Screen and pasted into Word and printed, which is what I used for the comparison I mentioned above, even though the font is somewhere between small and invisible <g>.Rolling back the Display Adapter driver did not work either.I did 'discover' the ntbtlog file and am now off on another tangent, namely the mrxsmb*.sys drivers thatare the last ones in the file. The thing that 'bothers' me about this file is I am not sure if it includes all of the entries due to having to do a 'hard' reset and possible losing data.Lots of info gleaned from google, to include a Microsoft KB Article 958960 that is aimed at Vista and/or Server 2008 but the symptoms match mine. A. I don't know if it will work on W7, lots of disclaimers?B. It won't run in safe mode and that is the only way I can boot.Thanks!

@HalBaker ACPI/AWY001 normally found on motherboard drivers. Its to do with system power management. What the specific device is depends on the the motherboard/manufacturers system. If you can post here what the machine is, manufactyrer model number or if self built motherboard model number i'll have a hunt see if i can ind out what the device actually is.

It is a DellInspiron 531.The 'interesting' thing to note here is that when I first installed W7 I was pretty impressed thatall of my devices were recognized and the latest drives were installed, probably the 1st time that had ever happened with an OS upgrade (for me). That unto itself gave me a very favorable 1st impression.The freeze/hang problem just started but I do not know if this 'device' is related.Thanks.

HalBaker said: I do not get a BSOD. It either 'freezes' immediately after I enter my password, displaying "Welcome" in the middle of the screen and the "activity icon/circle" continues to spin even though there is no disk activity lights or it will boot all the way to a 'normal' desktop but again the cursor is 'frozen' and there is no disk activity. The only recourse at that point is to do a hardware reboot.The Event Viewer only shows activity as relates to Office, mostly Outlook and most are Info entries. No indication of software or hardware failure at all.I was able to boot using the Diagnostic startup option but pretty much all 'Services' were Stopped or Disabled so I am not sure where to go from there as pretty much nothing 'works' though I do have a mouse and keyboard.I have not intentionately turned off system restore, it has been working as I have set a restore point a few times when installing apps and/or updates.I do notice that I have an "Unknown Device" now that I did not have or notice before. I don't know how to determine what it may be. The 'normal' devices like video, disk, sound, network, etc are all there and working.Is there a way to do a 'step by step' boot or a way to create a boot log that would show where it is failing?I did notice that the system 'freezes' immediately after the gadgets/sidebar was loaded but turning that off using msconfig did not help.It is a dual boot system using Vista Home Premium and I am not having any issues there, fwiw.To reiterate, the system was working fine yesterday when I left it (it stays on 24/7) so I am pretty much at a loss.Thanks. If the computer boots fine in Diagnostics mode, then you will have to do a trial and error method. What I would do is do a selective startup and check Load System Services while the others remain blank. Reboot and see what happens. If all is good, then you will have to select one-by-one items on the Startup tab. If not, then you will have to one-by-one items on the services tab and go from there. As for a step-by-step boot, you can reboot and enable boot logging. When the machine is starting up, hit <F8> and select Enable Boot Logging. Make sure your System Restore has enough space allocated to save system restore points. As for your unknown device, this is how you discover what it is. While in Windows 7, select the unknown device and view its properties. Under the details tab, make note of the values listed under Hardware IDs. Now, boot into your working other OS. Run msinfo32.exe and export the Hardware Resources to a simple text file. Now open that text file and do a search of the values you recorded earlier. You can now decipher the actual device and load the applicable driver.

DarienHawk67 said: If the computer boots fine in Diagnostics mode, then you will have to do a trial and error method. What I would do is do a selective startup and check Load System Services while the others remain blank. Reboot and see what happens. If all is good, then you will have to select one-by-one items on the Startup tab. If not, then you will have to one-by-one items on the services tab and go from there. It does not boot with Load startup items unchecked and Load system services checked.Now to enable the services one at a time as I reboot. Looks like about a hundred of them <g>.And the winner is (drum roll please)Windows Management InstrumentationWith this service disabled and all other services and startup items checked the system boots and 'seems' to be running normally.The description of this service states that "most Windows based applications will not function properly" if stopped or disabled but that doesn't appear to be the case so now what??Thanks

HiTo restore your system do:1. On boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu and try lasr known good configuration option2. If no progress on boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu, load safe mode open system drive(c:) properties in win explorer then restore drive using previous versions tab

@HalBaker Take a look at your logs to see if you can gleam any useful information. Type event at the Start Menu search dialog box and select Event Viewer. At the pretty overview and summary, check out the summary of administrative events to see if anything stands out. Windows Management Instrumentation is actually pretty important. Check its dependencies to see if one of those may be the culprit. For example, if an application that depends on the service is faulty, disabling the providing service seems to fix the problem; however, other dependent services will fail. Type services.msc at the search dialog box and check the properties of WMI.

DarienHawk67 said: @HalBaker Take a look at your logs to see if you can gleam any useful information. Type event at the Start Menu search dialog box and select Event Viewer. At the pretty overview and summary, check out the summary of administrative events to see if anything stands out. Windows Management Instrumentation is actually pretty important. Check its dependencies to see if one of those may be the culprit. For example, if an application that depends on the service is faulty, disabling the providing service seems to fix the problem; however, other dependent services will fail. Type services.msc at the search dialog box and check the properties of WMI.The Administrative Events log shows thousands of entries (6951), the predominant one relating to DHCPv6 errors. I have turned that off. There are other errors that I will try to investigate as to their relationship to WMI if I can.When I try to investigate the Properties of WMI per your suggestion, the manager aborts so I am not able to check the dependencies.This kind of reminds me of the old joke "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging" so my question is at what point do I just give up and do a fresh install? While I would like to know what the underlying problem is and what caused it, I am challenged by my lack of knowledge at the OS level.Thanks

But you may stop digging before you strike gold. J Issues like this will help you learn how the OS works, and in some cases, why.

Ventsislav Alexandriyski said: HiTo restore your system do:1. On boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu and try lasr known good configuration option2. If no progress on boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu, load safe mode open system drive(c:) properties in win explorer then restore drive using previous versions tab

Sanginius said: @HalBaker ACPI/AWY001 normally found on motherboard drivers. Its to do with system power management. What the specific device is depends on the the motherboard/manufacturers system. If you can post here what the machine is, manufactyrer model number or if self built motherboard model number i'll have a hunt see if i can ind out what the device actually is.Sanginius:Do you know what the away mode driver would be for a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H with an AMD 780G/SB700 chipset? It has the same ACPI/AWY001 device id.I couldn't find it on the Gigabyte or AMD/ATI websites.

Ventsislav Alexandriyski said: HiTo restore your system do:1. On boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu and try lasr known good configuration option2. If no progress on boot Press F8 to open Windows boot menu, load safe mode open system drive(c:) properties in win explorer then restore drive using previous versions tabI have not ignored your suggestion and have in fact tried it. The'problem' is that W7 does not know what the last good configuration was as I have changed the startup and services so many times in an attempt to 'fix' it. The 'current' last known good configuration has WMI disabled and of course that is not 'good'.What I am trying to do now is separate the wheat from the chaff, ie there are tons of errors in the log but when I try to analyze them using google and/or other search methods I get 'hits' dateing all the way back to Windows 2000. Microsoft has numerous 'hot fixes' fora particular error but none are for W7 (Ntfs 55 error, for instance).Thanks.

DarienHawk67 said: But you may stop digging before you strike gold. J Issues like this will help you learn how the OS works, and in some cases, why. Well, to further confuse the issue the system is now working 'normally' and other than 'fixing' the DHCPv6 errors I did not knowingly do anything. Because so many of the errors in the log referred to dependencies on WMI, I decided to Enable it again and if the system would still not boot I would 'nuke' it and start again.I set a Restore Point just in case and will just go forward from here, keeping a little closer eye on the event logs. Is there a way to empty them and start fresh or would that be a bad idea?I really appreciate all of the help from all who responded.Thanks!