Linux boots, Windows doesn't

[DesertFly]

A couple of weeks ago my computer started shitting itself--it would freeze for no reason, and slow down randomly. This occurred right after a power outage, during which the computer had been on, so I figured something might have been corrupted.

I was able to boot into windows for a couple more days, during which I started copying the few things I hadn't backed up to my external hard drive, but eventually it froze and wouldn't load windows at all.

I was able to use an Ubuntu live cd to boot, and I could access the hard drive, so I copied the last couple of files over. I tried to use the recovery tools on the dvds that HP had me make to restore the computer back to its original condition, and it completes the process, but then when it starts to load into Windows it locks up again, usually before the "Starting Windows" screen even appears.

I booted in Ubuntu, formatted the hard drive, and on a lark installed Ubuntu, and it worked fine. It booted, and downloaded and installed updates just fine. Since the hard drive seemed to be fine, I used a Vista cd with my product key to reinstall, but ran into the same problem: it "installed" fine, but then froze on first boot up. I used the error console to run chkdisk on it, and it found no problems.

I finally broke down and ordered a new hard drive from Newegg, but I wanted to know if there was anything else I should look for. I opened up the case and blew out dust (which I had done not too long ago, so it wasn't bad), and checked the motherboard. There didn't seem to be any component or circuit board damage. Additionally, even in linux my hard drive spins up, beeps, then spins back down occasionally.

[Archaic`]

I've had a similar problem, that's had a rather unusual solution. If you're using an ATI video card, try this.

Try booting your computer to the Ubuntu login screen, do a reboot from its menu, and select Windows from the GRUB boot menu. If Windows loads, odds are you've got the atidvag problem. Why doing this allows it to boot correctly, I don't know.

[DesertFly]

I've had a similar problem, that's had a rather unusual solution. If you're using an ATI video card, try this.

Try booting your computer to the Ubuntu login screen, do a reboot from its menu, and select Windows from the GRUB boot menu. If Windows loads, odds are you've got the atidvag problem. Why doing this allows it to boot correctly, I don't know.

Thanks for the reply.

I've got a GeForce 8800 GT, actually. The fun part is that I hadn't changed any hardware or installed any software right before this happened. I still think it's my hard drive, and just something with the way that NTFS does things that cause it to fail while ext3 doesn't.