Windows 7 - HP Problems

I have a win 7-64bit maching that was but is not now booting. I can pull the hard drive and read it with an external USB adapter on another PC. Have run the Malwarebytes and Superantispyware against it as an external drive.

To get to what I believe to be the crux of the problem which is drivers. I boot to the Windows 7 DVD and no operating system is found when I go to the repair option...no C drive when I go to command prompt, and no DVD (D) drive! Hell I just got done booting from the D drive but now I only have a RAM (X) drive, I went to HP to download drivers and the SATA driver thay have is a EXE file meant to install on a up and running windows. Where do I head from here to get the C drive recognized after booting from the Windows 7 DVD. Then I can use tools like BootSect to try and fix things but right now I'm stumped.

If you can read the drive then back up all your data, once you have that done try to repair the MBR, if that does not work you may have to do a fresh Windows install.

since bootsect is not copied to the RAM disk (X) and the CD drive or the hard drive is not accessible after booting from the system DVD I might not have any options here. It seems that one could use the "load Drivers" option to gain access to the CD drive and the Hard Drive as well since they are both SATA.

I have already backed up the drive but, as you know, there is a lot of time reloading all programs and copying the data back. I really want to get my arms around the core problem here.

Is this a laptop or desktop machine?
Did the machine have Norton AV on it?

Hi Joe,

Can you see the volume in DISKPART? Try this:

1. Boot from the Windows installation disk as if you were going to do a fresh install.
2. At the Language and Keyboard layout screen, hold SHIFT and press F10
3. A CMD window will open with the prompt X:\Sources
4. Type diskpart and hit enter
5. Type list volume and hit enter

What is shown? can you post a screen capture of what is shown? To exit DISKPART, type exit and hit enter.

Regards,
Golden

Hmmm...didn't know that one. I still don't think diskpart is copied to (X) but I will check in the AM. The unit is a desktop don't know if Norton's was installed. Will hook it up to my secure computer and check the desktop folder out tomorrow.

Thanks

Hi Joe,

DISKPART is an executable readily available on the Windows installation disk, so you definately have access to it. Let us know how you get on with that.

Regards,
Golden

You missed it on my OP. When done booting from my widows installation disk, at the X command prompt, I only have access to the (X) drove. The DVD (D), and hard drive (C) are not available! Even though I boot from the DVD drive, after getting to the X prompt there is no D.

I hope I made it clear.

Hi Joe,

You do not need to change drive letters in order to run diskpart.

At the X:\Source prompt, simply type diskpart and hit enter. Then follow up as per the other instructions. This will show us what volumes are available, and we can troubleshoot from there.

Regards,
Golden

OH HELL! I'M BACK AT IT AGAIN.
This stupid 9 month old HP SUCKS!
Model p6329f (AMD)
Windows 7 64 bit, 8 gig RAM, Bios 5.14 for what its worth.
It only has SATA drives (DVD & HDD)

If I pull the HDD and chkdsk it on a seperate machine I can get the press ESC boot menu up and the System DVD to boot one time when I put the HDD back. But then the System Recovery Options screen shows no operating systems and even from a command prompt I can not see the C drive. Am going to try DiskPart again but if I remember right even that did not show a partition. Then HOW could I read the drive on another PC using a USB/SATA adapter? This is why I think I need a driver for the newish SATA buss on this machine.

Rebooting after this I press ESC to get boot menu on startup but "Insert boot media in selected boot device" pops up without even asking me what device I wish to boot from! Second time thru a boot I press F10 for the setup utility and it hangs for 4 minutes before showing me the CMOS. Setup dosen't show me that the DVD or Hard drive is even recognized at the hardware level. Yet I can chkdsk the dam thing in another PC! and have copied the files.

About ready to flush this toilet and remove partitions on another PC then reload the OS...I just hope it will boot to a DVD with a blank hard drive.

I AM BEGINING TO DISLIKE HP COMPUTERS!