Unplugged power to clean case...now Windows 7 WILL NOT start...what is going on? Why

[AndroidVageta]

Well, this has happened before...and its happening once more.

I unplugged the power to my PC to clean out all the dust...hook everything up exactly like it was before and now Windows 7 wont start...just sits at the loading screen FOREVER never to change...what is going on here? Why would this happen?

Let me say first that there is a BIOS issue on my motherboard...whenever the power us unplugged the BIOS resets...nothing I can do about that...but the BIOS saved profiles still work, so I have one with just basic settings saved for when this happens. I reloaded this profile (which are the exact settings as before I unplugged it, when Windows 7 worked fine) and now this happens.

There are the following that I know for sure.

A) All internal components were untouched...everything is hooked up properly and is in the same place.

B) Granted the BIOS resets but all settings have been converted back to what they were before when Windows 7 worked fine.

C) All USB cables along with everything else was connected back to exactly where the were before.

Basically, theres no way that Windows would be able to tell that ANYTHING has changed...all hardware is in the same place and working, all BIOS settings are the same.

I know its not a hardware issue because this has happened before, forcing me to format and reinstall W7...not even Recovery or Start Up Repair or whatever it is works...

What is going on here? Why is this happening?

 

[notposting]

Doublecheck/reseat your connections. HD, DVD, mobo power, etc.

 

[Modelworks]

Doublecheck/reseat your connections. HD, DVD, mobo power, etc.

yep. I often see that when the drive cables are loose.

 

[C1]

Actually a similar thing just happened to me too. Vacuumed out the machine (supposedly carefully) but it turned out that I upset the main power connector so that I would get a CPU speed error fault/notification.

Pull the connectors to the MB & reseat them. It would also help before reseating them to wipe some DEOXIT on the connector contacts before reseating. If you still have trouble, reseat the PCI cards. After that, reseat all connections to the HDD.

Remember that the BIOS being reset also resets the system clock (including date) & hopefully WIN 7 isnt reacting to wake up to an extreme change in date-time setting change.

 

[RebateMonger]

Let me say first that there is a BIOS issue on my motherboard...whenever the power us unplugged the BIOS resets...nothing I can do about that

That's what happens when your CMOS battery is dying/dead. Every time you disconnect power to the motherboard, your CMOS will end up in an indeterminate state.

If you haven't done so:
1) Remove the current CMOS battery.
2) Short out the CMOS jumper.
3) Insert a new CMOS battery. Usually they are CR2032, which cost less than $2.00.
4) Change your BIOS settings as needed.

 

[SimMike2]

I second the CMOS battery. If it is dead, your BIOS will reset to a date that is old, sometimes really old. Windows 7 will probably not run. You don't necessarily need to buy the battery right now, just enter the correct date in the BIOS at startup. As long as you have AC connected, it should keep the date.

Recently I had a problem with XP installed on an older computer. I didn't check the date before installing. When the date got reset by Windows, on the next boot, XP told me it would not run without being activated. This is because the time from the install seemed to jump years. Windows 7 might be even more strict.

This old BIOS date can also cause problems installing updates also. Or even accessing Windows Update, especially with XP.