Bootcamp: Windows 7 Freezes Durring Start-Up (2011 iMac)

Hello folks,

I just inherited a 2011 i7 3.4ghz 8gb RAM Radeon HD 6970m iMac running OS X 10.8 from work, and I'm trying to get Windows 7 working on it. I've used bootcamp on my old iMac (2010) with no issue at all. This time, though, I've run into several problems.

Initially, once Windows started installing, the installation would freeze after the "loading windows files" screen. After shutting down and trying 3 or 4 times, it finally passed the point and I was able to install Windows. Now, however, I'm having a similar problem. Whenever Windows starts, 9 times out of 10, the starting screen freezes at the "starting Windows" screen right before the little Windows 7 graphic pops up (or just after it starts to animate).

I've read that having devices other than the stock keyboard and mouse connected could cause this; unplugged everything extra and it still happens. I've installed all the bootcamp drivers and updates, all of the Windows updates, all of my graphics drivers, and made sure there was nothing in my disk drive. No luck. OS X boots up fine, though.

I've come to my whits' end and could really use some help fixing these start-up issues. Once its succesfully started, it seems to run fine - I'd just like to make it work 100% - like I know it can!

Thanks in advance,

-mutedPlatypus