Win 7 64 bit pro stopped working, doesn't start - asks boot from cd

Hi,

I was using Windows (win7 pro 64bit), just browsing the internet and then I went away from computer for an hour or two. When I came back computer had restarted itself and there was this black bios startup screen and it asked me to boot from cd. "Boot from cd: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

Ok. I didn't know what was going on so I did that. After I inserted the cd, computer started to install Windows 7. I didn't want to do that so I didn't install it. I realized something is wrong.

I closed the computer. I decided to unplug all the usb-devices and restarted. Same thing again - boot from cd: disk boot failure... I pressed DEL to get to the BIOS settings. I changed bios settings to fail-safe. I restarted, pressed F8, chose at first Optimal Windows settings (sorry, can't remember the accurate names of these functions) but it didn't work. It just got stuck and nothing happened. Then I restarted and tried Safe Mode. It got stuck and I got blue screen which went away so fast that I didn't have enough time to see what it said. Then I changed the BIOS settings back to optimal, pressed F8 and selected Repair Your computer. The "Repair your computer" function didn't accept my password and then it just restarted the computer and again there was black screen and text: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK...

I tried once again use the F8 and choose Safe mode but F8-key didn't work anymore. When I pressed it, it did make a sound but I couldn't get to the point where I can chose Safe mode, Repair your computer, etc. All I got was the text DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK... I restarted four times, pressed F8 by pressing repeatedly and then just pressing it. No luck. And no - I don't have F-lock on, I don't have that kind of function on my keyboard.

So F8 doesn't work anymore, Safe mode gives me blue screen of death and everything else just gets stuck...

Please help me.

1) What's wrong with my computer?
2) What can I do now?
3) Have I lost all my work files inside the computer?
4) How can I figure out what happened to prevent this happening again?


- Tuomas

Tuomas,
Welcome to SevenForums.

go to a friend's 64 bit Win 7 computer, make a "System Repair Disc"

Connect an external usb disk to the computer.

Boot from the System Repair Disc.

Go to the "command prompt" option presented by the System Repair Disc.

Once thee you can then copy everything dear to your heart from your computer to the external disk drive.

You can try some of the "repair" options presented but I'm not optimistic.

Let us know the fruit of your labors.


START | type System Repair | Enter key | Create Disc button


COMMAND PROMPT - GO TO A COMMAND PROMPT USING A SYSTEM REPAIR DISC

1) Insert System Repair Disc into optical reader.
2) Shutdown your computer.
3) Boot up your computer from the System Repair Disc
If your computer doesn’t boot from the optical drive, then
Immediately after pushing your Power ON button, start tapping the F2 key to get to the BIOS to change the boot order.

On some computers, you can:
Immediately after pushing your Power ON button, start tapping the F12 key and choose CD/DVD to change the boot order only for this time.
4) Wait while a mini-version of Windows is loaded and finally the System Recovery Options dialog appears.
5) SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS dialog |
Select a keyboard input method |
NEXT button
6) SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS dialog
will search your system for installed versions of Windows.
7) SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS dialog |
select the Use recovery tools that can help fix problems starting Windows radio button |
NEXT button
8) SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS |
Choose a recovery tool |
9) Click on command prompt from the list shown

Run any desired commands and type EXIT when finished.
Remove the System Repair Disc.
Shutdown your computer.
Power on your computer.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/139576-startup-repair-infinite-loop-recovery.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html?ltr=S

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html

Check your bios, sounds like you have boot from cd as your first boot device, change it to boot from Hard Drive!!

Thanks for the help guys!

Unfortunately I don't have any friends who have Windows 7 64bit pro. Is there any other way to get the System repair disk?

Anthony: I checked the bios, the boot disk priority and it was indeed booting not from cd but from the wrong hard drive. I changed it, restarted and I got the Startup repair menu. First I chose the startup repair and tried to repair it without system restore. It didn't go very far, I just got the Windows logo text but even the Windows logo didn't show up and then it got stuck. After that I tried starting normally without repair, no luck. Then restarted and I tried again the startup repair and chose system restore. It went a bit further - I got to see the Windows startup text and also the logo. But then the computer just restarted and there was this "DISK BOOT FAILURE" -text again.

I was amazed by this since I just had changed the boot disk priority few minutes ago. So I went to BIOS again and tried to change the hard disk boot priority again. For my surprise the hard disk which has the Windows wasn't there anymore. It had vanished!

Is there a way to get it back so that bios will show it again in boot disk priority? I don't know if this has anything to do with it but it's a solid state drive.

your neighborhood computer store will probably be of assistance in buring a system repair disc.

I have find out that the SSD (OCZ vertex 2) is propably the cause of all this. Windows installation doesn't detect it at all. I continue this on OCZ support forum: Support Question Vertex 2 120Gb is dead, what can I do?

OK - This is a long shot, but what else can you do?.......

Open up your case & re-seat the SATA connector at the SSD and motherboard.

Thanks for the help. I hadn't tried that one but unfortunately it didn't make any difference. I got BSOD, computer restarted and after that computer couldn't find the SSD and just gave the "Disk boot failure" -message - or I think that's the way it went.

It seems to be that when I turn the power complitely off and then start the computer the computer recognizes the SSD but for some reason can't connect to it/start Windows. Then computer shows BSOD or some other error message and restarts. In that process the SSD somehow disappears, computer can't find any hard drive and just gives the Boot from cd/Disk boot failure -message. I'm not sure about this but I believe this is how it goes.

From this I have come to conclusion that there is something funny with the SSD. I believe it's completely broken. But I also suspect that the Windows 7 updates have something to do with this all because everything worked fine and then something changed causing the SSD malfunction. Windows 7 is the only thing that has changed on my computer within last month. I don't have any proof to backup this "theory" of mine so it's just a hunch.

tuomash said:

Thanks for the help. I hadn't tried that one but unfortunately it didn't make any difference. I got BSOD, computer restarted and after that computer couldn't find the SSD and just gave the "Disk boot failure" -message - or I think that's the way it went.

It seems to be that when I turn the power complitely off and then start the computer the computer recognizes the SSD but for some reason can't connect to it/start Windows. Then computer shows BSOD or some other error message and restarts. In that process the SSD somehow disappears, computer can't find any hard drive and just gives the Boot from cd/Disk boot failure -message. I'm not sure about this but I believe this is how it goes.

From this I have come to conclusion that there is something funny with the SSD. I believe it's completely broken. But I also suspect that the Windows 7 updates have something to do with this all because everything worked fine and then something changed causing the SSD malfunction. Windows 7 is the only thing that has changed on my computer within last month. I don't have any proof to backup this "theory" of mine so it's just a hunch.

Click to expand...

Not to take this thread off topic or anything but I had an issues recently too with the batch of updates messing up my laptop drivers. My graphic card wasn't properly installed and caused a lot of visual issues but luckily that can just be fixed with a driver from nvidia.

OK - Here's another log shot I should have included in the first post -

Try moving the SATA connector to a different SATA port on the motherboard and - if you have a spare SATA cable - replace it. It can't hurt!