If you perform a clean install on a laptop (especially of Windows 7), install the drivers for the system, and end up stuck at the Windows boot splash screen forever, you probably have a problem with a badly behaving hard drive shock protection driver.

Toshiba and HP/Compaq in particular seem to have this issue. The hard drive shock protection driver hooks into the system by installing itself as a filter driver on the entire “disk drives” hardware class, and if you don’t install it, you end up with a piece of hardware (usually something ACPI-related like HPQ0004) that whines about needing drivers. Sometimes the drive protection driver doesn’t cause the problem until you install or change your IDE/SATA storage drivers or other motherboard/chipset-related drivers. I have seen the HP shock protection driver only kill a computer after the AMD Catalyst installer for the motherboard hardware was completed and the system rebooted.

If you install a driver on a laptop and then get stuck at a Windows boot splash forever, here is how to fix it!

1. Turn on the computer hitting/holding F8 to get the Windows Advanced Boot Options menu.
2. Select “Last Known Good Configuration (advanced)” from the list. This will allow you to boot to Windows again and fix the problem.
3. Open the Registry Editor (Start -> type “regedit” in the search box and hit Enter). If a UAC prompt appears, allow Registry Editor to run.
4. Navigate to this key in the left panel: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5. Verify that the right panel has a value called (Default) with the data “Disk drives.”
6. Look for a value called “LowerFilters” which will have your shock protection driver’s name in it (usually hpdskflt or thpdrv but can be something else).
7. Click “LowerFilters” and hit DELETE.
8. Say “yes” when prompted. The value “LowerFilters” will vanish.
9. Reboot. The computer should boot up normally.

This will not fix boot splash stuck problems on every machine, and on rare occasions, Last Known Good doesn’t work to get back into Windows. I can’t guarantee this fix will work for everyone, but in my experience performing Windows reinstalls (especially when doing a Windows 8.x downgrade to Windows 7) this is a common problem.

Please leave any feedback or thanks in the comments below!