Blue spinning pin wheel, program not responding?

Please perform an in place upgrade repair.
This should be a baseline to work from.
After the in place upgrade please reset the startup and recovery system failure settings so that automatic restart is un-checked and then reboot.
For Ccleaner it's best to un-check the items needed for troubleshooting.
After the in place upgrade there will be software used to generate BSOD and then when available the dump files debugged.
These links you can read now but please do not use Windows driver verifier until it is communicated in the thread.
Driver Verifier-- tracking down a mis-behaving driver. - Microsoft Community
Enable and Disable Driver Verifier in Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials
Before using Windows driver verifier:
a) backup all files to another drive or to the cloud
b) make a backup image using Macrium
c) make a brand new restore point

The Memtest86+ version 5.01 testing can be done before or after the in place upgrade repair.

I will perform the upgrade repair next, after a Macrium image. Chkdsk didn't take too long, about 5 mins, results below:

Checking file system on C:The type of the file system is NTFS.A disk check has been scheduled.Windows will now check the disk. Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ... 254208 file records processed. File verification completed. 8677 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... 655 reparse records processed. 336746 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found. 655 reparse records processed. Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...Cleaning up 1357 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.Cleaning up 1357 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.Cleaning up 1357 unused security descriptors.Security descriptor verification completed. 41270 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 38024152 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ... 254192 files processed. File data verification completed.Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ... 48244699 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.No further action is required. 243567615 KB total disk space. 50086152 KB in 196883 files. 133464 KB in 41271 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 369199 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 192978800 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 60891903 total allocation units on disk. 48244700 allocation units available on disk.Internal Info:00 e1 03 00 56 a2 03 00 36 fc 06 00 00 00 00 00 ....V...6.......14 02 00 00 7b 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ....{...........Windows has finished checking your disk.Please wait while your computer restarts.

P.S. How do I retain the spacing in these copy pastes?

Regarding the in place upgrade repair do you suspect the OS installation is muddled or are we doing this just to be on a clean slate?

Edit: Sorry I recall you said we do this in case the issue is OS related.

Upgrade repair is in (done) but still have irritating pin wheel

When posting chkdsk results into the thread you can:
a) save to notepad > post a share link
b) post twice into the thread: enter text into the quick reply window > click post quick reply > click edit > post second time and it should appear normal.

For chkdsk /x /f /r and HD Tune > test all partitions/drives

Make sure automatic restart is unchecked after the in place upgrade repair so that you can see if there are any new BSOD. For any new BSOD please post a new beta zip into the thread for troubleshooting.

After memtest86+ version 5.01 and drive tests are completed if both pass the next step will be to create BSOD dumps for debugging.

Once the computer is tuned up (BSOD fixed, malfunctioning hardware if any identified and fixed) then the computer can be placed into clean boot of safe mode to see what happens with the rotating blue circle. That will take time as there is a lot of diagnostic testing (CPU, GPU, RAM, Drive) and Windows driver verifier.

So the in place upgrade repair appears to not have addressed the issue. Is there anything else you want me to do before memory testing? Unfortunately I'm going to have to go and get another flash drive to create the bootable memtest86, tomorrow is still a holiday so I may not get into this until Tuesday.

The HD tune and chkdsk tests can be performed on all partitions /drives.
Or the flash drive used for the in place upgrade could be formatted for the Memtest86+ version 5.01 testing.
It is anticipated that there will be a Windows upgrade to 1803 sometime in April.
When that happens you may want to have the latest iso.

I posted the chkdsk results for C: (OS) a few posts back, did you get that? I have two older Win bootable flash drives with versions 1607 and 1703, is there not much point holding on to those, at least the oldest?

Is HD tune safe? It seems to have a bad community score at Virustotal.com...

Did you gather anything from the BSOD's in log files? Any indication what hardware is involved? Do you have any clue at this stage after ruling out OS files/configuration what is causing the spinning pinwheel?

P.S. There is a definite correlation of the spinning wheel to when something is loading, I just can't recall whether this is normal behavior for modern Windows and the most current available hardware to have the spinning wheel so often. It isn't normal correct?

The chkdsk /x /f /r C: was unremarkable.
HD Tune is fine as a diagnostic tool (free).
The event logs displayed the drive has a bad block.
HD Tune should be run on all drives to see which drive has the bad block.
The BSOD information was found when the files were viewed and having dump files is preferred as they can provide more useful information.
Problems related to the operating system were nearly eliminated with the in place upgrade.
Problems could remain with the registry.
Most likely the spinning wheel is related to third party software.
That can be worked up once the computer is tuned up (no longer having BSOD whether they are software or hardware related).
When available please update the progress each of the steps in post #13.
For Windows driver verifier please review the 3 methods to turn off or recover from the tool using the Windows advanced troubleshooting menu.
Once drive testing, and RAM testing has been completed the misbehaving drivers can be found with Windows driver verifier. Then with the computer less likely to have a BSOD in the middle of a test the CPU and GPU testing can be performed.

I still have a large MEMORY.DMP in C:\Windows, Is that of any use? I'm not sure why I'm missing mini dumps, maybe I did delete them in CCleaner...

Was there any indication of what hardware the BSOD was related to? I am wondering if it is memory hence the mem test? How many times had this BSOD occurred?

I would imagine the Windows.old folder is not going to be of any use in the continued troubleshooting and can be deleted?