Boot up problems

Starting about 2 days ago my pc has been having some problems booting up, I got it to boot properly twice since the issue started but other than that it either gets stuck on the first screen with the black screen and blue windows 8 logo with the loading icon, or I manage to get to the login screen but when I login I open a program and it freezes, then I try restarting with the restart button on my case and it asks for a boot drive. I built the computer in January with some scavenged parts from an old pc.

Specs?
Grab a linux distro on a usb, boot of that. Backup important files to external drive. We'll go from there.

Amd fx-8350
gtx 760
8 gigs ram

psu? ssd? hdd? motherboad?

500 gb Seagate barracuda
600 Watt corsair power (80+)
Msi 970a-g43

Using a linux rescue cd is the way to go. But first see if the computer will boot in safe mode.

Okay, I'm booted up with Ubuntu "try me" but can't figure out how to back up my old files. I can't find like a "c" drive like how windows had

Right,

Do you know how to boot in safe mode in windows 8?

No

Ok, it's a bit different than older Windows versions, but you're going to need a Windows 8 install disk? Do you have one? You don't need a product key, just the installer.

Yes I have the disc

Right ok,

Boot off that disk. When it comes to the install screen (the screen that asks for your lanaguge) on the lower left hand corner, you should see some text that says "repair your computer" click on that, see if it gives you any options.

Remove the drive, connect it to another machine as a 2nd drive, and run something like CrystalDiskInfo to check it for bad sectors.

While doing that, run MemTest on the suspect machine to check for bad RAM.

It gives me a power off option and a troubleshoot, from troubleshoot I can "refresh" "reset" or go into advanced options and from advanced options I can do a system restore, system image recovery, startup repair, or go into the command prompt

that's the one you want.

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It gives a message that says it couldn't repair the pc and tells me to shut down or go back to advanced options

boot windows 8 like normal, but when you're at the title screen hold down the shift key while selecting to restart the computer, then this will allow you to select the advanced options and get into safe mode.

There's no option to restart the computer unless you mean the button on my case that restarts which in that case brings me to the screen that asks me to select a boot drive

Use F8 or Shift + F8 (doesn't work when using UEFI BIOS & SSDs)

Doesn't work, I have windows 8 1 full version on an hdd