Windows 7: Corrupt partition, can't boot, Startup Repair loop, tried chkdsk

Recently, my computer had a few files that were "corrupted and unreadable" and upon restarting or powering on the PC, it would run chkdsk before booting to Windows. It failed a few times, but once I luckily managed to get it to boot after running Startup Repair for the first time. This was when I only had 2 options (startup repair or run normally, which would fail and keep looping). My PC loaded really slow and I experienced even more corruption like files not reading, games not running, etc. So I restarted and tried Startup repair again. This time it took extremely long (left it over night for about 10 hours, woke up still hanging) so I just manually turned off the PC. Now it keeps doing the same useless looping without really fixing my HDD.

Today I tried booting from the install DVD, using Recovery Environment to run cmd prompt, then "chkdsk /f /r" (based on some online tutorials I found) , but it would take at least 2 hours each time, and mostly says "file record segment is unreadable" around 180000 all the way up to around 300000+. It didn't say whether anything was fixed, it just deleted a lot of random files near the end.

I have a 600 gb WD velociraptor split into 2 partitions. Through the recovery environment, I noticed that:

C: was system reserved at 100 mb,
D: was the first partition (which was blank and said 0 MB for some unknown reason), and
E: was my second partition with some data and an old image, which surprisingly I can browse through.

I tried using cmd to load up the D: drive that Win 7 was installed in, but it says "file is corrupted or unreadable".

Right now, the RE says "unknown location" or something when trying to detect the primary location of the OS, even though through DVD RE cmd it is currently at "D:". When I type "cd D:" it says "file is corrupted or unreadable", and when I click on load drivers, it is blank and has "0 mb".

I even downloaded a Windows 7 update too within the past few days. I heard that this problem would've been prevented in an earlier patch, but apparently not.

I suspect the registries are corrupted which is causing the endless loop at boot, and bad sectors and such but I don't know how to fix this.



Please help, I have lots of important software I have on that drive/partition and would prefer it if I didn't have to re-image it, let alone reformat and do a clean Windows install. Thanks.

Try looking through the following: TestDisk Step By Step - CGSecurity

Okay, I've tried the 32-bit, 64-bit and even the DOS version on a USB stick while in the recovery environment cmd. 32-bit says there's some image missing and won't work, the 64-bit gives an application error (the instruction at 0x66e43839 referenced memory at 0xffffffff. The memory could not be read), and the DOS version said it's incompatible.

I don't know how to get that to run since I can't boot even in safe mode right now.

BTW I tried restoring to the image I had on the 2nd partition, it said that it was also corrupted or unreadable. :/

Are you able to burn a CD on another computer. It is usually harder to boot from USB with programs like these in my experience.

You can get Ultimate Boot CD - Download the UBCD and use parted magic's subprogram TestDisk instead.

The downloads are in the mirrors at the bottom of the page.

You may also want to try running something like MS Standalone Sweeper From a "Offline" DVD or flash-drive, which it will make for you very simply. Although, If your not able to access Win 7 Environment, you may need another computer to make the disc.

Mike

I got this error message:

windows defender offline error

windows defender offline cannot be started

error: unable to detect a windows system drive. this could be due to missing drivers, an encrypted drive, or a corrupted windows installation.

error code: 0x8004cc01



Btw I managed to boot up using an Ubuntu DVD to access my HDD to copy and backup my important files, even though Windows can't find that drive or let me open it.

EDIT: I have booted up Parted Magic using UBCD and am following the step-by-step instructions. So far it has not said "corrupted NTFS boot" like it does in the example. Am currently running a deeper analysis on the first partition with windows on it.

You have to start parted magic. It is built into that program. I'll see if I can make some screenshots of how to get there.

Sorry I just edited my post right before I saw this. I managed to find it and boot it up, and am running deeper analysis. Right now, it says "warning: incorrect number of heads/cylinder 16 (NTFS) != 255 (HD)" and under it says "warning: incorrect number of sectors per track 2 (NTFS) !=63 (HD)". At about 6000/72961.

Glad you found it. I am going to still include the step by step screenshots in case someone else stumbles across this thread and has similar issues.