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My ageing (late 2009) Windows 7 desktop PC has started doing something odd of late. If I restart it, or shut it down completely, it does not restart properly - it gets up to the black screen with 'Starting Windows' at the bottom, but the Windows logo animation does not begin.

However, if I leave it powered down for at least 2 minutes (1 minute is apparently not enough), then on my next attempt it seems to always boot without any problems.

I tried booting it in safe mode when it wasn't working, and it gets as far as loading 'classpnp.sys' - which from a bit of online research, often suggests a problem with the HDD, but I ran CHKDSK and got no errors.

Although it's getting on for 6 years old now, it's not been used that heavily.

Specs: - motherboard: ASRock G31M-S - CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 with integrated graphics - RAM: 4GB DDR2 - HDD: 500GB Maxtor (from memory, I think just a basic 5400 RPM)

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  • My bet would be your HDD is dying. Lack of errors from chkdsk means little. Sep 4, 2015 at 19:15
  • Ah, I feared as much... is this likely even if the PC always seems to boot okay after a 2 minute power-off? Sep 4, 2015 at 19:27
  • Yes. It could be the drive has an over-temp sensor that's kicking in, or the drive motor is failing and it's not spinning up fast enough. Either way I would make a backup ASAP if you have irreplaceable data on it. Sep 4, 2015 at 19:30
  • Use a program like DiskCheckup that can read the SMART status of the drive and post the info here.
    – Bigbio2002
    Sep 4, 2015 at 19:52
  • @CareyGregory There's no valuable data on it (all my files are on Dropbox), just the pain of re-installing Windows etc. (which I've only just done this week!) Might take the opportunity to upgrade to SSD and try to clone the drive... Sep 4, 2015 at 20:12

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