Win 7 will not boot - screen is stuck on "starting windows"

[Yugima]

Hello,

I have been in quite the flurry since I came up with this problem this morning. First Ill give you all the tech specs. See, I have a Toshiba Protégé M200 Tablet PC running windows 7. The M200 was specifically designed for Windows XP, so there are some small driver issues here and there. I got the laptop used via Cragslist. The man who sold it to me was very knowledgeable on PC systems and such. I bought the laptop for $200 (I'm a student, so that was a godsend). The man fully reformatted the HD and put a fresh install of Win 7 on it. A big problem is that I DO NOT have the Win 7 license, HE does. I have no recovery discs or anything.

This laptop was bought because I needed to use one program that only runs on PC platforms. I have been getting by with just about the bare minimum and everything has worked perfectly for the past two years since I bought it.

I have it loaded with the max amount of RAM the model can handle: 2 GB. It has NVIDIA GeFORCE FX (I believe that is the graphics card?). I cannot say much more about what else it has for hardware, drivers, etc. as I cannot access ANYTHING on the computer. You can find the manual for this model here (PDF or HTML): http://www.fixya.com/support/p511024-toshiba_portege_m200_p000388600_tablet/manual-14757

Now for the walkthrough of what happened:

I was showing my family some files on my laptop this morning. All was normal. I walked away, leaving the computer plugged in, powered on, and with two web pages open. I was gone for about 15 min. When I returned, the screen had the pulsating/glowing windows 7 graphic and the message "Starting Windows". I thought it was odd, but I just shrugged and decided to wait until it finished booting. I waited, and waited, and waited. Still same graphic and same message. I then forced shutdown by holding the power button and waited a few moments, thinking that restarting it might get it out of its funk. Restarted and seemed alright at first, but then got stuck in the same place as before...again. That’s when I freaked.

I then tried a few keystrokes with the power button (F8 and F2) and got the advanced boot option list. I tried several of the options with the results as followed:

1. "Restart System normally" - resulted in screen with glowing/pulsating graphic and "Starting Windows" message. Stuck indefinitely there.


2. "Safe Mode" - resulted in screen saying "Loading Windows File" and a running list of loaded system files. Each time it stops and gets stuck at the line:

Loaded: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\agp440.sys

Including a few of the lines above, this is exactly (including type cases) what it looked like:

Loaded: \windows\system32\drivers\mup.sys
Loaded: \windows\system32\drivers\hwpolicy.sys
Loaded: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\fvevol.sys
Loaded: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\disk.sys
Loaded: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\CLASSPNP.sys
Loaded: \windows\system32\DRIVERS\agp440.sys

Get stuck at same spot every time. The light on the laptop body that indicates the HD is being accessed/used just slowly blinks on and off with a green light. Nothing else happens.




3. "Repair Your Computer" - resulted in a black screen with a grey loading bar on bottom of screen, above which is the message "windows is loading files..." the bar loads fully and then goes to another loading bar. This one is short and in the bottom-center of the screen. Its loading/processing indication is a set of little green bars going from left to right. When it seems to have loaded, the screen simply turns to a blank black mode. It is still backlit, but it’s black. The light on the laptop body that indicates the HD is being accessed/used just slowly blinks on and off with a green light. Nothing else happens.



4. Also tried removing my external HD (which I did with reluctance as I could not properly EJECT the device)...No luck.


I am aware that the mup.sys file is something out there that is very likely related, but after a bunch of research, I’m still not sure exactly what it is in non tech speak or how to work with it.

Also, something that might be of importance is that last night I was browsing the internet and I tried to download some file. It downloaded and then said it could not work (don’t remember exact error message). Then a little window would pop up saying that I had one message alert: something about a potentially dangerous presence on my computer. I deleted the message and then x'ed out of it assuming it was spam. Everything was still working fine after that and through to late this morning.

I have looked at several other posts here as well as other websites (but I figured I could get better help if I gave my SPECIFIC situation):

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=117891.0

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=87902.0

http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mup-sys-resolved.html

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=87902.0

I’m away from home (in US) visiting family (in US) so it is EXTRA stressful as I have no idea who to contact and where to seek help from. I’m still in the US, but I do not know much about the area I am in.

I will accept any and ALL help and I thank you in advance for anything you have to offer!

Cheers,

Yugima

[geek hoodlum]

Also, something that might be of importance is that last night I was browsing the internet and I tried to download some file. It downloaded and then said it could not work (don’t remember exact error message). Then a little window would pop up saying that I had one message alert: something about a potentially dangerous presence on my computer. I deleted the message and then x'ed out of it assuming it was spam. Everything was still working fine after that and through to late this morning.

Hi Yugima,

Welcome to Computer Hope!

Have you tried System Restore?

After you install software it makes changes to the registry or delete files, and sometimes you may even modify some settings knowingly or unknowingly. In your case, the file you downloaded may install on your computer without your knowledge. It is possible that the system may start crashing or become unstable. If that happens you can undo all this changes and restore the system to earlier time by using System Restore Utility.

• Press F8 when your computer starts.
• Choose System Recovery which should be the first option
• You will be prompted for user name password which should be an administrator account.
• Next you will get 5 ways of making  a restore : Startup repair, System Restore, Windows complete pc restore, Windows Memory Diagnostic tool and Command prompt
• Select System Restore
• The System restore windows will display list of restore points which was already created by the computer itself or if you have done it before.
• Select a restore point which suits best. In case your system stopped working because of software installation choose restore point just close to it.
• Select the restore point and follow the wizard. Once restore is complete your system will be rebooted and hopefully your computer will be in working condition.