Dear MDL Admins and experts. I hope you can provide me with your insights on this problem i am having... I bought a new laptop HP ProBook 450 G1 (i5 4200M, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 2GB ATI Graphics card). The laptop comes with DOS free operating system. I installed Windows 7 Ultimate from ISO file on a USB stick, and then activated the Windows. After updating all drivers and having a clean device manager with no hardware left as unknown, i figured out that the laptop fails to make a cold BOOT. After several trials, and installations. the problem remained the same. I changed to Windows 8.1 Pro and the problem remained. On cold booting, the device after showing HP logo in start-up starts to show Windows Logo animation but in Super Slow Motion for about 6-8 minutes, then followed by strange sounds which force me to shut it down by pressing power button for long until it shuts down. After some trail and errors, i found out that if I entered BIOS Setup ( by pressing esc then F10) and then exiting it without doing any changes or even without saving, the Laptop boots Windows 7 very smoothly (in about 15-18 seconds) and works fine. it also can make endless number of smooth restarts without any problem. If it is shut down then turned on, the boot failure is the outcome. To make a successful cold BOOT, i have to enter BIOS setup mode, then exit within seconds without changing anything or saving, then it boots smoothly. I tried MBR fixes through command prompt in Recovery Mode, I tried to change booting to make it boot as LEGACY or UEFI Hybrid. NO HELP.....All lead to the same disappointing result. Any idea whether this is a hardware issue/software issue/BIOS issue? Your insights will be highly appreciated
Hello! SolarisX, one thing I'm not clear, Did you installed Windows 7 on the Hard drive or on a USB stick?,. 'cause first thing I was going to suggest to you was to install Windows on a removable USB and check if it boots fine from it,.but,. then, I read your post a second time and think is what you did,.right?? I've been working with computers for a long time now and the only moving parts that make strange noises when failing are the hard drive and sometimes the CPU or GPU fans. HD's (Hard Drives) usually make strange clicking noises, when the heads or plates are parked, a cold boot could take a long time if they are malfunctioning, and based on what you're saying seems to me that your H.D. could be the one to blame. Do you hear clicking noises? Can you cold boot without problems from the DOS free O.S.? you can always go to your hard drive manufacturer website, they usually have diagnostic tools for you to download, the tool will check and tell you if your HD is working the way it should be or not.