Problems with Bootcamp and an iMac 27".

Question

Hi, I recently installed a full copy of Windows 7 Home Premium, purchased at Office Depot, on my fully upgraded iMac 27" (Core i5, 4GB, Radeon 4850). My intent was to use Snow Leopard as my platform of choice for work and special projects, while booting into Windows for gaming (PC gamer).
I had an Applecare representative on the phone as I installed the operating system and the process appeared to resolve quite successfully.
I used the Apple Bootcamp Utility to establish a partition size of 300 GB, and then I placed the Windows 7 32 bit full installation DVD into the drive and proceeded with the installation. I ensured that the Bootcamp partition formatted thoroughly (NTFS) and I set Windows to download all the necessary updates automatically via Windows Update.
I ensured that the upgraded GPU drivers were included during the installation (to avoid the black screen issue), as well as installing the Snow Leopard disk drivers, the iMac 27"-specific drivers and new Bootcamp 3.1 update for Windows. The partition worked fine and appeared to have been configured successfully after approximately 2 days of booting.
Soon after, I installed Quake Wars, L4D 1, 2, Mass Effect 2, Need For Speed: Undercover, Mozilla Firefox and Sophos Enterprise AV. Approximately a week after installation, I began to experience malfunctions varying greatly. Sometimes, when I would boot, I would simply reach a black screen with a white, flashing cursor. Other occasions I would load to a black screen, which contained a disk read error (Disk can not be found) and a request to CTRLALTDEL. Yet other times, the computer would simply lock up on the gray, Option bootdisk selection screen. In each of the aforementioned circumstances, the computer would seem permanently stuck, since the computer would not proceed to any operating system, regardless of time allotted (up to 20 minutes provided). On occasion, Windows would boot normally with no problems whatsoever.
During each of the inexplicable lock ups, I would initiate a hard reboot, and boot off of the Windows 7 HP 32 bit DVD. Often, the DVD would perform a boot check of the operating system. On each of the occasions, the operating system check would list no errors. Because I was using the Apple Wireless Keyboard, I assumed that perhaps the issue remained with an inability to strike CTRLALTDEL and quickly purchased a USB keyboard. While I no longer receive the "Can not find disk" errors that request CTRLALTDEL, I still rarely get the black screen with the flashing cursor and I routinely receive the gray, OS option screen.
I believed that perhaps booting with an external drive or jump drive attached might be causing the problem but upon removing all of said drives, the boot malfunctions persist. I used the Snow Leopard Disk Utilities to scan the hard drive and it detected no problems. I also utilized Windows hard drive utility to check for bad sectors. After 2 hours of scanning, no bad sectors or hard drive problems were detected. I finally rebooted the system in ChkDsk and upon 1 hour of scanning, ChkDsk confirmed no problems, bad sectors or issues with the hard drive. Because all three utilities appear to be unanimous, operating from two distinct operating systems, I'm inclined to believe the consensus and dismiss the possibility of a defective hard drive.
While I can always eventually reboot into Windows, I am concerned that the large number of "hard reboots" - reboots done using the power button, which account for 5-6 on bad days, will eventually lead to a diminished lifespan for my iMac's motherboard or power supply. I want to curtail these pointless restarts. Booting with the Windows 7 DVD in the hard drive, yields a clean boot into Windows, however, this is very inconvenient and, moreso, would lead to wear and tear on the DVD that I would rather avoid (as well as not resolving the problems inherent in my Windows boot partition). After running the Windows 7 boot utility, over a dozen times, and receiving no errors at all, I'm at a loss for what the problem can be.
My biggest problem, currently, is to avoid the wave of hard reboots. This most naturally occurs due to the computer locking up on the gray OS option screen. I'll select Windows and the hard drive will not spin up. I was advised to check my boot ini or use utitilities that provided a hard-mapped boot table for the Windows partition but I'm wary of corrupting or damaging my Windows installation.
Has anyone experienced these problems with their Macs, 27" or otherwise? And can anyone help me resolve this problem before substantial wear and tear through constant rebooting results? Thank you for any input and thank you for your time.

Answer 1

Well, you're not alone. Many other users are having the same problem,and it appears that Apple is ignoring the problem. I bought my iMac 27" in June 2010 and installed Bootcamp 3.1 running Windows 7. About every other reboot the gray screen will freeze during bootup and I have to do a hard reboot. Sometimes I get the Disk Read Failure. It is very, very frustrating. The only reason I bought the iMac 27" is that I like the look of it and the big screen; I have no desire to switch to a Mac, as I have too much money invested in Windows development software. I've installed multiple dual-boot systems in other non-Mac systems and never had any problems. I hope Apple stops ignoring the problem and comes out with a fix real soon.