Laptop keeps looping on the start screen...

I have a 2011 Samsung laptop running on Windows 11 (leaked build from last year) now. I upgraded the HDD to SSD last year and also the RAM was upgraded.

If I restart the laptop, it comes to the blue screen during boot (sometimes with Windows logo) and just freezes there. After sometime, it will reboot again on its own and again freezes on the same screen. When it freezes, I don't see the circular progress bar or whatever it is called.

I have to force shut down many times (sometimes like 15 to 20 times) before I see the circular progress animation and then the laptop boots fine. Once booted, everything runs smoothly.

I want to install the official Windows 11 build, but this behaviour is preventing me from attempting to install the latest official ISO. I had a lot of difficulty when installing the leaked build last year, so I don't want to try the new installation until I identify the problem.

Any ideas what is causing this behaviour? Faulty RAM, faulty motherboard,...? If hardware was faulty, why is the laptop running fine once it manages to boot into Windows?

It sounds like a startup problem rather than a hardware problem.

You could try booting from the installation USB to run startup repairs [instead of running the installation itself].
Startup Repair - TenForumsTutorials There does not seem to be an ElevenforumTutorial yet but I'd not expect it to be any different anyway.

The Macrium Reflect boot disk has, so its users say, even better startup repair facilities.

Best of luck,
Denis

1) Make sure fast startup is off.

2) Place the computer into clean boot > reboot > report findings

3) Perform startup repair > indicate whether it reports that it did create srttrail.txt > post a share link

4) If problems continue consider making a boot trace using Windows Performance Recorder (WPR)

5) Run the V2 log collector > upload results into this thread

Once it's up and running, use Macrium Reflect to create an image (a suspect system is better tan no system at all).

Then install disk checking software to test the integrity of the SSD.

However, if it was me (I luv spending other peeples money ), I'd skip the possible endless hours of troubleshooting and (attempted) problem solving ... more than often fruitless ... and get a new SSD and do a clean install of Win 11.

If you open the log file, you’ll be shown details of all the tests performed by Startup Repair, with any errors discovered detailed. We can use this information to help diagnose and get to the root cause of the problem.



To open log file from the Windows Recovery Environment, click and open the Command Prompt. When the Command Prompt is open, type Notepad and press Enter key to open the Notepad application. The Startup Repair log file is located at:






You will need to navigate to the drive on which you have Windows installed (usually the C: drive) to see the SrtTrail.txt log file.

Try3 said:

It sounds like a startup problem rather than a hardware problem.

You could try booting from the installation USB to run startup repairs [instead of running the installation itself].
Startup Repair - TenForumsTutorials There does not seem to be an ElevenforumTutorial yet but I'd not expect it to be any different anyway.

The Macrium Reflect boot disk has, so its users say, even better startup repair facilities.

Best of luck,
Denis

Click to expand...

I have seen it booting into the Startup repair mode by itself (or because I force shut it down multiple times), which then fails. This happens multiple times.

The startup repair utility has been pretty useless in my experience. It has never worked on my devices as far as I can remember. On my HP laptop, it is superfast to tell me 'Startup Repair couldn't identify the problem'.

zbook said:

1) Make sure fast startup is off.

2) Place the computer into clean boot > reboot > report findings

3) Perform startup repair > indicate whether it reports that it did create srttrail.txt > post a share link

4) If problems continue consider making a boot trace using Windows Performance Recorder (WPR)

5) Run the V2 log collector > upload results into this thread

Click to expand...

I don't have the laptop with me right now. I'll do this and report back.

idgat said:

Once it's up and running, use Macrium Reflect to create an image (a suspect system is better tan no system at all).

Then install disk checking software to test the integrity of the SSD.

However, if it was me (I luv spending other peeples money ), I'd skip the possible endless hours of troubleshooting and (attempted) problem solving ... more than often fruitless ... and get a new SSD and do a clean install of Win 11.

Click to expand...

So you are suspecting a problem with the SSD. Like I said in the OP, everything runs smoothly once inside Windows. I will run a disk check and report back.

FreeBooter said:

If you open the log file, you’ll be shown details of all the tests performed by Startup Repair, with any errors discovered detailed. We can use this information to help diagnose and get to the root cause of the problem.



To open log file from the Windows Recovery Environment, click and open the Command Prompt. When the Command Prompt is open, type Notepad and press Enter key to open the Notepad application. The Startup Repair log file is located at:

Code:

C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt

You will need to navigate to the drive on which you have Windows installed (usually the C: drive) to see the SrtTrail.txt log file.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll try that and report back.

TheMystic said:

So you are suspecting a problem with the SSD. Like I said in the OP, everything runs smoothly once inside Windows. I will run a disk check and report back.

Click to expand...

Windows has limited capacity for repairing itself in the event of some malfunctions. In the case of a failing drive, Windows will attempt to recover data in bad sectors and (re)write to good sectors. But if the drive is failing, Windows must continually repeat this on each (re)boot, until ....