HDD order has changed after system restore....

Katanyavich said:

Deleting and rebuilding the partitions doesn't help, nor does a clean re-install of Windows.

Can you provide more details on this point.

I am surprised that a "clean re-install of Windows" did not help.

What type of disk did you use for the reinstall and did you delete all partitions when given the opportunity?

Did you have only 1 drive connected during the reinstall?

You might try the "clean" command on the disc from Diskpart during the install.

ignatzatsonic said:

Katanyavich said:

Deleting and rebuilding the partitions doesn't help, nor does a clean re-install of Windows.

Can you provide more details on this point.

I am surprised that a "clean re-install of Windows" did not help.

What type of disk did you use for the reinstall and did you delete all partitions when given the opportunity?

Did you have only 1 drive connected during the reinstall?

You might try the "clean" command on the disc from Diskpart during the install.

The re-install was from a legit Win 7 64-bit disk.

I deleted and reset the partitions to their default (2x750GB Toshiba SATA disks
with one partition each) on installation. No other (external) disks were present.

I have also reset the BIOS to its default state, also with no success. Neither MSE nor MalwareBytes indicate any issues.

It SEEMS as if disk 0 has become disk 1, and vice-versa, altho the recovery partition appears to still be on disk 0 with windows. I cannot access it even with a startup disk, altho the option is there everything is greyed-out. So I presume the recovery partition is 'toast'.

I'm confused.

You say "2 x 750 Toshiba SATA disks with one partition each".

If I was installing Windows, I would have ONLY ONE disk connected. I assume you had 2 connected if I understand you correctly?

I'd try again, with just the disk that will receive Windows connected. Wipe all partitions from it by choosing "drive options, advanced" when you come to the "where do you want to install Windows" screen.

Don't reconnect drive 2 until all is well.

If all is not well after that attempt, I might then use "clean" in Diskpart.

Ideally, you would want the Windows drive to show up as "Disk 0" in Windows Disk Management. You should be able to control that by choosing the right SATA port on the motherboard for the drive cable connection.

It's a laptop.

The drives are internal, not attached external drives.

It's definitely booting from disk 0, ascertained by changing the boot order in the BIOS.

The OEM partition no longer exists, the bad sys-restore killed it. The recovery partition is still there. Would ditching the Recovery partition help, do you reckon?

See below....

I assume the "recovery partition" is the 9.77 GB partition?

I'd doubt it is the problem, but if you don't want it, delete it.

I'd start over as I said in previous post.

Connect only one drive to port 0.

Disconnect other drive completely.

Reinstall, deleting ALL partitions (assuming you don't care about the recovery partition).

Make a partition structure of your own choosing. I'd probably use 80 or 100 GB for C and all the remainder for data (D or whatever).

Thanks, I'll give that a shot and let you know how I go.

Have disconnected disk 1, and am currently installing on disk 0.

All partitions were deleted, and am installing on a single partition.

So far, so good.

I'll keep you informed.

Thanks again.

Kat.

That did the trick!

Re-connected drive 1 after the reinstall, re-partitioned both drives and restored backups of my files.

All is good (touch wood!) and both System Restore and Image Restore are working again.

Thanks again!