Freezes when loading Windows & random crashes

The tutorial section gives an excellent overview of Clean install,re-install options and which is best for different situations.If you use the Clean install and have the same problems,then it would indicate a hardware problem.
The data from event viewer should be used to search the web,Microsoft first,to find any answers if available.

Dandido said:

Interesting jamis, thanks for the information. I have to drives, one new SSD with Windows on it and one older HD with the rest of my stuff on it. Do you think one of these could be the problem?

I don't know, but if there are hardware issues causing the crash, they should be in the event logs. The system event log where the Kernel Power error was also had the drive called out with the bad block. I just disconnected it to see if that had any effect on my system and it did. This drive was manufactured in 2007 and was the C: drive in a prior tower. I moved it over to my current tower when the mother board failed in the old system and then moved the user data from it to the new C: drive. Since then, the old drive was formatted and used as a File History drive until just recently. So this suspect drive has been in constant use since 2007. I don't know what the mean time to fail is for these SATA drives, but I think ten years is pretty good. It won't crush me to abandon it. I may put it in a USB external enclosure and see if it causes the same issues as when it was internally mounted.

joeandmarg0 said:

The tutorial section gives an excellent overview of Clean install,re-install options and which is best for different situations.If you use the Clean install and have the same problems,then it would indicate a hardware problem.
The data from event viewer should be used to search the web,Microsoft first,to find any answers if available.

Thanks, I will look up the tutorial section! I didn't manage to find anything useful searching on the errors from the event viewer, unfortunately.

jamis said:

I don't know, but if there are hardware issues causing the crash, they should be in the event logs. The system event log where the Kernel Power error was also had the drive called out with the bad block. I just disconnected it to see if that had any effect on my system and it did. This drive was manufactured in 2007 and was the C: drive in a prior tower. I moved it over to my current tower when the mother board failed in the old system and then moved the user data from it to the new C: drive. Since then, the old drive was formatted and used as a File History drive until just recently. So this suspect drive has been in constant use since 2007. I don't know what the mean time to fail is for these SATA drives, but I think ten years is pretty good. It won't crush me to abandon it. I may put it in a USB external enclosure and see if it causes the same issues as when it was internally mounted.

I see, it's too bad my computer doesn't write out any crash dump logs.

Click the start window and select Windows Administrative Tools. Then select Event Viewer and then Windows Logs. Select System Logs. That's where I found the information.

I couldn't find any useful information from the System Logs or anything else so I ended up re-installing Windows following the clean install instructions on this page and it has been working fine since then. Thank you everyone for helping me! You are the best kind of people.