Help - Windows won't boot, white dash blinking endlessly.

Hey guys, here I am again with another failure.
Today morning I woke up to my windows refusing to boot. It just does the white dash blinking in the top left corner (it jumps down a bit at first, then just keeps blinking endlessly). I'm aware that this can be a result of a poor shutdown or a crash or modified system files or program installation, or whatever. The thing is last night I was using the computer fine and I didn't install anything, modify anything, and it shut down correctly (as far as I know - after I clicked shut down I shut off the monitors and went somewhere else, and just when I came back it turned off so I assume it was fine).

I've tried a number of things already. First, I'm booting from an Ubuntu CD right now and my files are all fine and intact on the C:\ drive. Second, I tried running my Windows 7 CD to go into the recovery system and tried a bunch of things.

The recovery thing doesn't detect my operating system, first of all, but I've had this issue before. I remember that I got it to work somehow, but I don't remember how. I think it might have been a disc that I burned with a modification that allowed it to detect the system (I used some tutorials over at sevenforums.com, can't remember which ones now though). I'll look for the CD, I might have it somewhere.
EDIT: I found what I presume is the CD but it doesn't even want to boot. I'll try looking for whatever I found before and make another one, I guess. But if I could get it to detect my OS I'd at least be able to run startup repair and system restore.

Since that renders startup repair useless (I tried it, didn't work of course) I tried messing with the command promt. Obviously there I could find the C drive and I tried performing a chkdsk on it. It did a LOT of stuff, it ran for about an hour, messed with the indexes, then "restored orphan files" for literally every single file on the bloody disk. Told me it made corrections to the system (failed to save the log though, apparently), and it didn't work.

I tried sfc /scannow and it told me that the Windows Resource Protection could not perform the operation after about a minute of trying to do so, no idea why.

/FixMbr and /FixBoot didn't work either, UNLESS I didn't properly identify which partition I wanted it to fix. I'm not a wiz at cmd commands, so I may have done it wrong. A friend of mine had a similar issue some time ago (here is his thread) and apparently that fixed it for him. But doesn't seem to work for me.

I also did a quick test with my WD Diag tools CD and it was fine. The disk definitely works so it's not the issue, it's the Windows installation. I have no clue what to do at this point and I seriously don't want to reformat. I'll try to dig up that CD that I have a faint memory of making, because maybe it'll detect my OS and allow me to run repair and/or system restore.

Cheers and thanks in advance.

How many times have you tried the repair option? If a system is hosed it may take three tries.

Found this link:
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

From here:
Startup repair menu doesn't see an operating system

We also need more information about your system, Please fill out your system specs.

Is this the OS the machine came with or is it an upgrade from Vista, XP?

Why are you still at Windows 7 RC, have you not been updating?



It took me a while to reply, but speedgamer01 has valid points in his/her evaluation of your situation.

speedgamer01 said:

Yes,
I haven't noticed that you have RC, it has expired 2 months ago!
Didn't you get popups in windows? It seems that Microsoft has decided to shut off RC versions, they can't run forever for free.. @Anak I'm a he

@Anak I'm a he

Good to know! :)

I get distracted at times in order to take care of the Homestead, and I had thought of other reasons for this thread especially the MBR, but when I came back I saw you, sg01, had already articulated them.

Oh, no I have Windows 7 Professional. I haven't updated my profile here since ages ago, I guess.
I don't have another partition, I have other hard drives where I can install it though, if that works... I don't really get how I can rebuild the MBR manually, I thought it's possible to do it from the CMD.
Either way I wouldn't mind doing this if I can install windows on another HDD and then erase it completely if I fix my issue.

Also I looked at the 3 times repair thing but I didn't really understand it. All it talks about is how to mark a partition active in the repair CMD. And then what? Do I just re-run the startup repair 3 times?

My system specs are:
Windows 7 Pro (64bit)
MSI P7N Platinum motherboard
4GB DDR2 Ram
Radeon HD 6870
550 watt rosewill psu

And yeah that's about it. Though I don't see how hardware specs apply here.
Also any idea what could have caused this? Windows didn't show any signs of problems before I shut it down. Except one of my rainmeter skins died for some reason, which didn't make sense, but I don't think that's related. That's the only odd thing that happened yesterday.

EDIT: Actually, I missed this part:

Now return to Recov Tools list to run Startup REpair up to 3 separate times with reboots to write MBR to Windows 7.

I'm going to try this later today. Question though: Would I have to retype the command prompt stuff (to activate the partition) every time I restart?

There is entirely too much to keep track of to solve your problem. My suggestion would be to do a Clean Install with your 7Pro disk.

Clean Install Windows 7