Stuck at spinning circle during startup

[Damian]

Hello,

So here's my issue: I started my computer and came back to find it at a error screen with the smiley face saying that information needs to be collected then I can restart. It displayed and error code and mentioned something about a driver error. I waited until it reached 100%, but it didn't restart on its own so i shut the computer down manually by holding the power button on my case. Then it booted up, but it got stuck on the spinning circle of dots. I have been able to press Esc, CTRL+ALT+DEL and F2 while at the spinning circle which bring me to the login screen but without the box to enter my pin, however, I am able to access the network, ease of access and power options. I have tried restarting, shutting down, and holding shift while restarting in an effort to boot with safe mode but none have gotten me farther than the spinning circle.
I have search a lot of forums and many have had similar issues to mine but none of the fixes that were suggested got me anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Trouble]

Hello Damian and welcome to the forum.
Boy, we sure seem to hear a lot of this recently.
If you can get to the advanced trouble shooting option by holding the shift key while restarting and try a System Restore to a point in time before the first occurrence of the problem it might help.
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that if the BSOD mentioned a driver issue, that a Safe Mode boot (not with networking as it might be a network adapter driver) didn't allow it to go ahead and boot.

 

[Damian]

Hello Damian and welcome to the forum.
Boy, we sure seem to hear a lot of this recently.
If you can get to the advanced trouble shooting option by holding the shift key while restarting and try a System Restore to a point in time before the first occurrence of the problem it might help.
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that if the BSOD mentioned a driver issue, that a Safe Mode boot (not with networking as it might be a network adapter driver) didn't allow it to go ahead and boot.

I have tried to get to the advanced options by holding shift but is hasn't worked. However, I was able to get there but I was mashing all of the keys during the splash screen and I have no idea what I pressed I ended up booting up in safe mode with networking and ran some scans and error checking found a error and attempted to fix it but upon restart it was unable to complete the fix and now gets hung up on the same spinning circle. I found my recovery disks but they are from 2010 when i had Win7 they are of no use now. Any other options? Thanks!

 

[Trouble]

IF it ran in Safe Mode, then it will likely run in safe mode again if you can get there again.
You can boot from the installation media and hold the shift key and press the F10 key that should produce a command prompt.
From the command prompt window you can type
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
hit enter
type exit
close the installation window.
When the computer reboots keep tapping the F8 key that should produce a legacy menu from which you can select Safe Mode.

 

[Damian]

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get back to safe mode again and when press F8 it only allows me to select the boot device and that's it.

 

[Trouble]

If you've performed the steps I described above then you may have to select the boot device and almost simultaneously keep tapping the F8 key.
Some computers steal the F8 key function initially but it should still work if you're quick enough after choosing the boot device. Arrow up or down to make the proper selection and immediately resume tapping F8. See if that'll work.

 

[Damian]

Still no luck I have attached photos of the different screens I'm seeing, hopefully they can shed some light on what I'm dealing with.
The first photo is what appears when I press CTRL+ALT+DEL while stuck at the loading screen; the login screen but without the box for entering my password/PIN
The second photo is what I get after pressing F8 during the mobo splash screen
The third is what appears after selecting either of the two boot devices shown in the second photo
The fourth is the mobo splash screen
The final photo is what appears after the mobo splash screen

 

[Trouble]

IF you use the power option button on the bottom right of the first screen image that you posted and hold the shift key while clicking restart.....
What happens?
YOu should see some advanced trouble shooting option screens that should get you to Startup Settings which should in-turn allow you to boot back into safe mode.

 

[Damian]

It restarts, but no advanced trouble shooting option screens appear. I have tried this multiple times but every time it just restarts and I'm back at square one...

 

[Trouble]

Maybe try experimenting with your System Setup Untility (BIOS) try loading defaults (some say safe defaults, or optimized defaults or other similar words) see if that makes any difference.
Perhaps the hard disk storage controller mode is mis-set to IDE and should be SATA or AHCI / SATA or is set to AHCI / SATA and should be set to Native IDE.
I'm really just grasping at straws as I can't explain how this would happen out of blue like this.
Do you have a backup of your critical data? I think you might be looking at a clean install, which will likely leave you with no data or programs so a backup is important.
Perhaps you could boot your system with a Linux distro Live CD and copy off your files to an external hard disk.
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=205
Just burn the ISO to a DVD or USB ThumbDrive and boot your system from that and see if you can copy off your critical files.

 

[Damian]

I was unable to find the safe default or optimized defaults in the BIOS. I set the hard disk contoller to AHCI from IDE with no luck. Additionally, I tried to boot from a USB Drive with the Linux ISO but I only get as far as a screen saying "Remove Disks or other media Press any key to restart" and "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot decice and press a key" I feel like I should just take my computer to the store I purchased it from and have them run an advanced diagnostic test and see what repairs they can perform.

 

[Trouble]

Switch it back to IDE.
Does your motherboard support booting from USB? Most reasonably new ones do, it would have to be pretty old not to.
Looks like F8 should produce a boot menu and that should offer your USB device as an option.
IF not maybe burning it to a DVD might be the way to go. You can use ImgBurn to do that http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=download after installing simply right click the ISO and choose Open with -> ImgBurn.

 

[Damian]

Well my mobo is somehat older, about 6 years, but it was rather high end at the time and I have booted from a USB before if im not mistaken. However, I accessed the boot menu through F8 and selected my USB Drive as the boot device but that led me to the reboot and select boot device screen. I will try the DVD method when I have the time.

 

[rumog]

Hey, were you ever able to solve this? I see lots of people who had this and said they just ended up returning/replacing it... I first had a different issue where the power adapter wasn't recognized when plugged into the base (actually nothing in the base was recognized) and the display wouldn't separate from the base. Eventually it ran out of battery and I found that you could pry it apart without too much trouble, then I was finally able to charge it (and after that the base magically started working again) Everything was fine for a few days, then I started having this issue. I've tried every piece of advice on forums I could find (boot into uefi stuff, uninstall video driver, recovery mode options), and finally even did a reinstall of windows, keeping my files. Still there

I'm on a Surface Book which is already way overpriced for what you get out of it, but I really love the display and design. If I can't get this thing to work though, I think I 'm just going to ditch it and go for a good ubuntu ultrabook...

 

[BigFeet]

I've had this trick work to get to the advanced troubleshooting option when both in a boot loop and hand infinite spinning circle.

 

[Tim Eckel]

Hello,

So here's my issue: I started my computer and came back to find it at a error screen with the smiley face saying that information needs to be collected then I can restart. It displayed and error code and mentioned something about a driver error. I waited until it reached 100%, but it didn't restart on its own so i shut the computer down manually by holding the power button on my case. Then it booted up, but it got stuck on the spinning circle of dots. I have been able to press Esc, CTRL+ALT+DEL and F2 while at the spinning circle which bring me to the login screen but without the box to enter my pin, however, I am able to access the network, ease of access and power options. I have tried restarting, shutting down, and holding shift while restarting in an effort to boot with safe mode but none have gotten me farther than the spinning circle.
I have search a lot of forums and many have had similar issues to mine but none of the fixes that were suggested got me anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Try unplugging all of your USB devices. As soon as I unplugged my Logitech nano dongle it continued the install process.

 

[Flowgun]

I think the problem originates from "test mode" in build 1511. I unplugged my pc around 3 times when I saw the windows logo until I saw under it "preparing automatic repair". After that, I chose advanced options\troubleshoot\advanced options\startup settings\restart and I chose safe mode (F4). I was able to install and run a software that I downloaded from another pc (called tweaking.com) to correct the problem and it worked! After some time, I needed to enter test mode and by enabling it and restarting, the problem came back.

 

[Yayayaya]

Try unplugging all of your USB devices. As soon as I unplugged my Logitech nano dongle it continued the install process.

I made this account just to say that this worked for me. As soon as I removed all USB devices it worked

 

[It worked]

I made this account just to say that this worked for me. As soon as I removed all USB devices it worked

I created an account just to second that this worked and to thank "yayayaya" for creating his account just to let me know this was the solution!! I also had a logitech nano dongle!

 

[Helige Holger]

I've had this trick work to get to the advanced troubleshooting option when both in a boot loop and hand infinite spinning circle.

Thanks so much for the video. It just worked also for me after hours of unsuccessful other solutions. unfortunately, if the computer is allowed to continue scan-and-repair, it still stops at 42%, shuts down and starts up again. I'll live with it for th time being.