Windows 7: winload.exe digital signature not verified & boot manager loop

Forget about drive letters! They are just logical references to a volume. It is defined in registry so is difference in all windows instances.

Win8 is working? Do you have the Windows 7 or win8 bootmenu?

Kaktusoft-

I tried your suggestion (get rid of bootmgr), but the "cannot verify digital signature" message for winload.exe still comes up. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks!

Did you delete the right one? After deleting you tried a normal reboot....and then it said "bootmgr is missing"? After that you tried startup repair which replaced bootmgr and it gave you "cannot verify digital signature" on normal boot afterwards?

Did you use Windows 7 or win8 startup repair?

Kaktussoft-

Thanks for the rapid reply.

Yes, I followed all the steps - got rid of bootmgr from the root of e:, then ran repair from proper win 7 disk (system is home premium 64), rebooted and got the exact same message. Very annoying, since this has apparently worked for others.

Here may be a clue. Getting rid of bootmgr was not easy. It gave me an "access denied" msg even when trying to change the attributes, so I had to boot from a linux CD to get at that file. This is a Dell machine, and perhaps has a special version of Win 7. I am trying to avoid wiping the disk and reinstalling Win 7, but that is what I will have to do unless you can give me something else to try. By the way, I have also tried the bootcfg command to no avail.

Do you think the file winload.exe is actually bad? Could it simply be replaced with a copy from another Windows 7 home prem 64 installation? Would it be worth trying?

sorry..indeed you can't delete bootmgr.

instead you can do
That works for sure. But did you get "bootmgr is missing" after reboot (and not doing startup repair)?

also in recovery environment do:
Boot normally. You get error “Windows Boot Configuration Data File is Missing" now?
boot again in recovery environment and do a "startup repair" 3 times, with boots in between

Kaktussoft-

I can't rename these files in the command prompt session of the system recovery options. I get "access denied" messages in both cases. Should I try to do it again through my Linux boot cd? Or is there a way to override the "access denied" while in the command prompt session? attrib does not work, gives same "access denied" msg. The last time the so-called repair seemed to just replace the files, and the same behavior ensued.

I have run a memory check on the system. All seems well.

Maybe Windows 7 hates me because I hate it. But thanks for your persistence.

Did you try to rename when booted from system repair cd or install dvd? Then it should work. Anyway try it from linux. you still didn't tell me if you got bootmgr missing afterwards!

after you delete both files do from recovery environment command prompt:

Kaktussoft-

I used my Linux disk to delete the bootmgr and bcd files. I did subsequently get the "bootmgr missing" msg. Them I went into the recovery environment and used bootrec as you suggest. Now it actually tries to boot (a little progress), but always goes immediately to the Startup Repair box. After "attempting repairs", it waits 30 seconds and reboots. Does this over and over. I have let it run for an hour or so with this cyclic behaviour.

Thanks for your help, but there must be something wrong which your fix does not cover. I am going to fish out salvageable files (documents and pictures) with Linux, do a fresh installation of Windows 7, and restore the salvaged files. This is very annoying and time consuming, so I was looking for an easier way. I have found there seldom is in these instances. I guess your method is worth a try first, but in this case it was not to be!