Hi Guys,

Having a technical hiccup I'm hoping you can help with!

I decided to make the move to Windows 7 a month or 2 back despite my doubts and being a loyal XP fan however my recent problem is making me wish I never made the move but it's too late and I've searched the web for answers without any luck:

Windows 7 Ultimate installed without any issues. However problems soon started. I was using a WD raptor HDD but it soon deteriated in performance without reason. A second format failed after I made the mistake to update my windows and drivers and caused my computer to refuse to boot. I'm now on my third fresh install of windows with a different harddrive. All has been well for about a month.

But for about a week now my computer is really struggling to boot to windows. It freezes at 'Windows is starting' at boot. This is when I started researching online - Trying various options out there such as disabling USB devices. I changed the SATA mode in BIOS from Enhanced to Compatible and that made it boot perfectly but only once. On my next boot it was all back to normal. I'm beginning to think it might be a hardware issue? I am able to get to desktop on average but it takes around 30 minutes to do so.

I have backed everything up and I do have plans to get another raptor in the short future as I always have one HDD to run just the OS. But I really am lost for ideas on what is causing this and what could be done to repair the issue?

My Specs are:

Windows 7 Ultimate x86 (Legit)
Motherboard: Asus P5K
Processor: Intel Quad Q6600 @2.4GHz
RAM: 3GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT (I am running dual screen)

I would like to point out that when I do actually get to desktop my computer works fine.

Thanks, Hope to get some good responses!