Steam freezes on startup, also crashes entire computer

[Retro Renegade]

I've been using my account on this computer since November of 2013. Always worked fine. Eventually, it started slowing down a bunch. When loading it up, most of the time it would freeze, taking my computer with it. Nothing can be clicked on my Windows 8 desktop. The taskbar, everything stops working. Can't ctrl+alt+del. I'm forced to hard shutdown. First, I could play games and they'd run great, but every once in awhile they'd crash. Tonight, however, it completely stopped. I can't even start the client without it completely freezing up and locking my computer. I've been Googling this issue like crazy, and I've tried everything. Reinstalling Windows .NET Framework, disabling/enabling all sorts of drivers, updating said drivers, running Steam in all compatibility modes, even reinstalling Steam as a whole (saving the SteamApps folder somewhere else). Finally I've found my issue. When I move the SteamApps folder out of my Program Files/Steam folder, Steam makes another one and starts up just fine. Is there any way I can keep all my old games/saves in my SteamApps folder and have Steam start up with them? Thanks for your help in return. I hope at least a little of this made sense to you guys. :P

[Retro Renegade]

*bump*

Please, I could really use the help. Anybody.

I managed to get back into Steam with all my games in their original place, and sometimes I can even play games again. But most of the time, they'll freeze up, either fully, like Road Redemption, or the music/sound will loop and the video will pause and stutter like in Max Payne 3. However most of the time, the client locks up before I can even get to the games and gets the Windows "Aero" border around it and I'm unable to click anything. If Windows tells me it's not responding and I choose to close it quick enough, I'll have a free pass. But if I'm not fast enough, my connection (just on this machine) will lose all connection, even on Google Chrome, etc, and the entire computer will lock up quickly after.

[Retro Renegade]

Well, I give up. Steam hasn't been of any help after trying to reach out to them numerous times. I've come to the conclusion that it's something inside of my SteamApps folder, or my hard drive as a whole. So I ordered a 2TB Western Digital internal HD (my Seagate Barracuda, as I've learned, has a very high failure rate) and a 1 TB external to transfer the folder to, hopefully without any issues. Cost a pretty penny for the both of them, but I needed to upgrade anyways. If this is a solution, I'll report back again and let you all know, for any of you who see this.

[Falro the Great]

If you've completely reinstalled Windows (with a format), then the issue is most likely hardware-based. How old is the old drive?

[Retro Renegade]

I'm not sure, tbh. :/ I got it used at a mom and pop game shop around this time last year. Whenever I try transferring files from one folder to the next, it moves the files, but Windows still acts like it's completing the process until I shut down hours later. Little things like that. I used Seatools for Windows and ran every test I could on it. It passed all of them except for the Short DST one. I heard that it's usually caused by bad sectors, and could possibly be fixed. So once I transfer the data to my ext. hard drive (out of safety for all my data), I'll see if I can't fix it in the Seatools interface and make it useful again.

[Retro Renegade]

After putting in the new hard drive, I'm glad to say that everything in Steam works again without freeze. :)

[exrosecity]

I have Windows 8.1 OS. I was having repeated crashes upon startup, or whenever a steam update installed. I have removed the Steam app from my startup programs, and so far, so good. Hopefully my games will still run.