W7 will not start, various errors

Hi everybody,
I am here today in need of help.



First, let me say that I never shut my computer down. The last time I went on the computer was last Wednesday and everything worked as usual.


Yesterday, when I got home from work, I went to my computer and turned on the screen to notice my background was gone and replaced by a black wallpaper with a message saying my Windows 7 Ultimate is not genuine (Been using this genuine copy since it came out). So, I went ahead and clicked the link it gave me to activate it. It sent me on a page to install a patch or something and then confirm on the website when the install is completed. So I installed it and went to confirm but then when it tried to activate, I got a message saying "Windows Activation Technologies plug-in crashed". I retried many times with different browsers, nothing worked, WAT plug-in always crashed.


So I then tried to do a System Restore to last Wednesday (which is my last known working state). Restore completed succesfully, yet now computer will not boot; Windows cannot start. So it sent me into its Startup Repair and tries to repair many things, but nothing yet worked.


-I ran Memory Test, everything is OK.
-I tried booting on Windows 7 DVD, got the same repair screen
-I tried cancelling restore from Repair Menu; Restore failed to extract a file in Mozilla Firefox and got me an "unspecified error occured during System Restore (0x80070017).
-I tried restoring to many other points; Restore failed with error (0x8000ffff) (if I recall correctly)
-I tried going in Safe Mode; cant even reach Safe Mode, it throws me back at the Startup Repair menu.
-I tried doing a "Upgrade Install" from W7 DVD Boot, but it tells me that I need to boot normally the computer in order to proceed to the upgrade. Which I cannot do.


So I decided to re-run the Startup Repair, which still didnt change anything, but this time I read the results. It says:
-Hal.dll is corrupted
-Mountmgr.sys is corrupted.


I dont know what to try next. I cannot afford formating my computer, I have too many important documents in there that I just cannot lose. I believe all of this began with a Windows Update, because last critical security update was Thursday and it worked fine a day earlier. Now I am stuck there.
If someone can help me, I'd really appreciate your input.


Thank you,
Maesen

Hello Maesen and welcome to Seven Forums.

One of the Forum experts prepared this troubleshooting guide that may help. Follow the steps exactly as he lists them even if you've already done some of them. Each step builds on a previous step. It's time consuming but has helped many.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

If the troubleshooting guide doesn't help you might consider a repair install since you don't want to format your machine. A repair install will try to fix your currently installed Windows 7 while preserving your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers etc. The repair should take about an hour or so. After it's finished you'd have to visit the Windows Update site to reinstall updates. That could take a couple of hours.

Repair Install

marsmimar said:

Hello Maesen and welcome to Seven Forums.

One of the Forum experts prepared this troubleshooting guide that may help. Follow the steps exactly as he lists them even if you've already done some of them. Each step builds on a previous step. It's time consuming but has helped many.

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

If the troubleshooting guide doesn't help you might consider a repair install since you don't want to format your machine. A repair install will try to fix your currently installed Windows 7 while preserving your user accounts, data, programs, system drivers etc. The repair should take about an hour or so. After it's finished you'd have to visit the Windows Update site to reinstall updates. That could take a couple of hours.

Repair Install

First of all, thank you for your reply.

I tried all the suggested steps that I hadnt tried already:
-I tried burning Windows Defender Offline and when I went to boot on it, I got the error message (0x8004cc01).
-I then tried burning Kasperskey Rescue DVD but it wont even boot correctly on the CD, it gives me an error about finding root or something.

I cannot do the Repair Install because it's the same steps as doing the "Updated Install" that I first described in my original post.

So I am still stuck at the same spot, what do I try next?

Thank you,
Maesen

VistaKing said:

Hi Maesen

Try this below

Startup Repair

Already tried many times. All unsuccesful.

VistaKing said:

What error messages do you get ?

Hal.dll is corrupted is from a booting issue. Have you tried bootrect.exe /fixboot ? from the command prompt?

I tried these 4 commands from the command prompt:
-BOOTREC /FIXMBR
-BOOTREC /FIXBOOT
-BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD
-BOOTREC /SCANOS

All of them were completed with success. So I went ahead and rebooted. No boot. Still brung to Startup Repair.

VistaKing said:

Check your BIOS settiings

What am I supposed to check exactly? If you could be a little more precise I'd appreciate. I never played in BIOS settings.