[RKinner]

Go back into the Safe Mode menu and enable boot logging.  It will probably keep doing the Last Known Good stuff.

 

What time zone are you on?  I'm in Florida on Eastern time.

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I'm actually in MO myself, but tend to keep some pretty off-kilter hours (grad school does that to you!)

 

I've noticed a couple strange things during this whole ordeal:

a. Not every boot attempt seems to generate a log entry

b. The advanced boot options menu (through F8 during startup) seems inaccessible while I have my bootable USB stick inserted - I'm only able to get the Windows Error Recovery prompt (with options safe mode, SM w/ network, SM w/ cmd, and normal boot), which appears every boot regardless.  I have to remove the USB to be able to access the Adv Boot Options menu instead of the Windows Error Recovery one.

c. Even with the bootable USB removed, I only seem to be able to successfully get into it ~25-50% of the time.  It ignores my F8 'request' the rest of the time, and just goes to the Windows Error Recovery prompt.

d. I have to re-establish my boot priorities every time I re-insert the USB.  It seems to default back to the SSD when I remove the USB; once I set the USB as the primary boot option though, it'll stay that way as long as I don't remove the USB.   

 

All of this has made things more complicated on my end than they otherwise should be...Actually did a little test last night doing a series of different boots to see what generated a log:

 

1. USB removed, F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Enable boot logging

2. Insert USB, boot into USB recovery environment

3. Remove USB (kept removed for all following steps), F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Last Known Good Config

4. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Enable boot logging

5. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Last Known Good Config

6. Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode

7. Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode

8. Windows Error Recovery, Start Windows Normally

9.  Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode w/ command prompt

10. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Safe Mode w/ command prompt

11. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Safe Mode w/ networking

 

As far as I can tell from the time stamps and the outputs, it seems like all but #2, #3, #5, and #8 generated logs (attached).  Each case had the identical end result: black screen & cursor.  Don't know if any of this is meaningful at all, just what I've noticed on my end.

Attached Files

•  ntbtlog.txt   851.4KB   685 downloads

[stallada]

I'm actually in MO myself, but tend to keep some pretty off-kilter hours (grad school does that to you!)

 

I've noticed a couple strange things during this whole ordeal:

a. Not every boot attempt seems to generate a log entry

b. The advanced boot options menu (through F8 during startup) seems inaccessible while I have my bootable USB stick inserted - I'm only able to get the Windows Error Recovery prompt (with options safe mode, SM w/ network, SM w/ cmd, and normal boot), which appears every boot regardless.  I have to remove the USB to be able to access the Adv Boot Options menu instead of the Windows Error Recovery one.

c. Even with the bootable USB removed, I only seem to be able to successfully get into it ~25-50% of the time.  It ignores my F8 'request' the rest of the time, and just goes to the Windows Error Recovery prompt.

d. I have to re-establish my boot priorities every time I re-insert the USB.  It seems to default back to the SSD when I remove the USB; once I set the USB as the primary boot option though, it'll stay that way as long as I don't remove the USB.   

 

All of this has made things more complicated on my end than they otherwise should be...Actually did a little test last night doing a series of different boots to see what generated a log:

 

1. USB removed, F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Enable boot logging

2. Insert USB, boot into USB recovery environment

3. Remove USB (kept removed for all following steps), F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Last Known Good Config

4. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Enable boot logging

5. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Last Known Good Config

6. Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode

7. Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode

8. Windows Error Recovery, Start Windows Normally

9.  Windows Error Recovery, Safe Mode w/ command prompt

10. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Safe Mode w/ command prompt

11. F8 to Adv Boot Opt, Safe Mode w/ networking

 

As far as I can tell from the time stamps and the outputs, it seems like all but #2, #3, #5, and #8 generated logs (attached).  Each case had the identical end result: black screen & cursor.  Don't know if any of this is meaningful at all, just what I've noticed on my end.

Attached Files

•  ntbtlog.txt   851.4KB   685 downloads

[RKinner]

When booting without the USB if you get to 3.

on https://eventlogxp.c...-recovery-mode/

and hit command prompt does that work?

 

Can you do

 

sfc /scannow

 

Do you get the same results as before?

 

Look in C or D :\Windows\inf

 

find

 

hal.inf

cpu.inf

oem53.inf

nettun.inf

netavpna.inf

netrasa.inf

netsstpa.inf

 

Rename each from inf to txt then attach them to a reply.  The first three look to be more important.  The net... stuff is just networking so it shouldn't stop the boot.

 

I want to make sure that the files are the same as on my windows 7.  Then we will look at the files that each refers to.  In the first one we see:

 

ntkrnlmp.exe       
hal.dll   

2nd

processr.sys        
intelppm.sys        
amdk8.sys        
amdppm.sys

I don't have oem53.inf so can't tell what files it uses.

[stallada]

Sorry for the hold up!  Crazy busy few days at work.

 

Ran SFC, and it returned "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations".

 

Here are the files you asked for.  hal and cpu seem to match what you put.  oem53 has:

 

;nvvad32.sys

;nvvad64.sys

nvvad32v.sys

nvvad64v.sys

nvaudcap32v.dll

nvaudcap64v.dll

 

It appears to be the "NVIDIA Virtual Audio driver".  Don't know to what extent this matters, but when you first raised the possibility of it being a video driver issue, I removed my graphics card (ASUS GTX660) and have since been running straight from the mobo.

Attached Files

•  hal.txt   2.3KB   662 downloads
•  cpu.txt   18.38KB   689 downloads
•  oem53.txt   7.8KB   869 downloads
•  nettun.txt   20.57KB   720 downloads
•  netavpna.txt   5.16KB   675 downloads
•  netrasa.txt   30.45KB   8613 downloads
•  netsstpa.txt   5.01KB   720 downloads

[RKinner]

Let's try something easy first.

 

Look in C or D :\Windows\inf

 

find and delete

 

hal.pnf

cpu.pnf

oem53.pnf

nettun.pnf

netavpna.pnf

netrasa.pnf

netsstpa.pnf

 

Make sure you get the .pnf file and not the .inf one.

 

Reboot.  It will create new ones.  These are just precompiled versions of the .inf file which are used to speed up the boot a tad.  I'm thinking it's possible that the pnf versions might be corrupt.

 

There are two setupapi logs in \windows\inf  one with app in the name and one with dev.  Can you attach them?

 

Looking at the Hall.inf file it writes to the registry in about four places.

 

Example:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\ACPI_HAL\0000

 

This looks like:

 

 

is that what you have?

 

What sizes do you have for:

    
hal.dll

One of these should show you the size:

 

dir c:\windows\system32\hal.dll

dir d:\windows\system32\hal.dll

 

ntkrnlmp.exe   which is also mentioned in the hall.inf does not exist on my PC so expect it is only on the setup disk.

 

 

[stallada]

Deleted those files, no change on startup.  oem53.pnf was the only one that regenerated after reboot.

 

Attached are the setupapi files.  There was also a 15MB file 'setupapi.dev.20170302_021456' in blue font.

 

There were 4 ControlSet00x entries in the SYSTEM hive.  1, 2, 4 had entries in that address; they all seem to match what you have.

 

My hal.dll is 263KB.

 

Attached Files

•  setupapi.app.log   2.14MB   709 downloads
•  setupapi.dev.log   926.14KB   1521 downloads

[RKinner]

 263,040 bytes ?

[stallada]

Yes, that matches what mine says exactly.

[RKinner]

I would put the graphic card back in.

 

Then give me a new ntbtlog.

 

Give me the exact bytes for:

 

nvvad32.sys

nvvad64.sys

nvvad32v.sys

nvvad64v.sys

nvaudcap32v.dll

nvaudcap64v.dll

 

I expect they will be in \Windows\System32\Drivers

 

Also attach

 

ks.inf,

wdmaudio.inf

 

 

IF you boot to the safe mode menu then to Command Prompt can you type:

 

explorer.exe

 

and hit Enter?  What happens?

[stallada]

Re-installed the video card, and did a few different reboots (1. normal, 2. safe mode, 3. last known good, 4. enable boot log, 5. normal).  ntbtlog attached.

 

nvvad64v.sys (40,392) was the only one in \Windows\System32\Drivers. nvaudcap64v.dll (37,320) was in \Windows\System32.  The other ones weren't in either directories.

 

Attached the ks.inf and wmdaudio.inf files.  

 

Still unable to boot into anything but the recovery environment.

 

 

Attached Files

•  ntbtlog.txt   215.8KB   662 downloads
•  ks.txt   66.24KB   695 downloads
•  wdmaudio.txt   8.96KB   668 downloads

[RKinner]

Do you have afd.sys in windows\system32\drivers

 

What size is it?

 

IF you boot to the safe mode menu then to Command Prompt can you type:

 

explorer.exe

 

and hit Enter?  What happens?

 

Also in Command Prompt type:

 

net start afd

 

What does it say?

[RKinner]

I'm thinking it may be time to do a full install but back up your data first.

[stallada]

afd.sys is 497,152 bytes.

 

I'm still not able to boot into safe mode unfortunately. 

 

I was thinking it was starting to look like we were just spinning our wheels, but I was holding out hope that we'd get lucky! If you're out of ideas and say it's time to call it, I'm OK with it - I've got all my files saved via cloud, so not too big a deal, just trying to avoid having to reinstall some harder to track down software.

[RKinner]

My afd.sys is 496,128.  I suppose we can try to replace yours and see if that changes anything.

 

Download the afd.zip, save and then right click and extract all to get the afd.sys file

 

alternatively you can download afd.txt and rename it to afd.sys then try to copy it to \windows\system32\drivers

 

 

the CMD command to copy a file is:

 

copy afd.sys \windows\system32\drivers

 

If that won't work we can let FRST do it.  I just need to know where the downloaded file is.

 

 

[stallada]

Replaced the afd.sys with the one you provided, and it doesn't look like that made a difference