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I've got a problem with a Win7 machine that up until now has been very reliable. During the boot it will just power off -- no warnings or BSOD. Sometimes it gets as far as the login screen but shuts down on login, other times during the splash screen. System repair and System Restore don't make any difference. I can boot into safe mode or onto a boot disk, which suggests it's not a CPU overheating problem. I wondered if it was some kind of disk corruption, but I wouldn't have thought it would boot into safe mode. I've removed all peripherals but that makes no difference. Nothing in the event viewer either.

What other steps could I use to diagnose what's going wrong?

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Hey I had the exact same problem , my SATA cable of the primary HDD was loose , then changed the cable and magic , it worked –  subanki Sep 11 '10 at 12:25
I did add a new HDD a few weeks ago, so thanks, I will check this. –  the_mandrill Sep 11 '10 at 14:34

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Boot to safe mode, run chkdsk /R Run memory test

There should be something in the event log, even if it just says "The previous shutdown was unexpected" or something...?

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I meant that nothing is mentioned in the event log at the point the shutdown occurs. Trying chkdsk at the moment. –  the_mandrill Sep 11 '10 at 14:34
It now boots after a chksdk /R (I knew about the /F option but not /R). No indication of what the problem was before as it didn't find any errors, but that' progress at least... –  the_mandrill Sep 12 '10 at 9:13

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