Changed msconfig setting. Booting win7 now impossible.

Yes, one other drive. It is a 500GB drive that I remove and format regularly. So no boot files there.
I guess the host PC is simply not reading the system

Whenever I try to boot, startup repair it gets upto 'Windows is loading files...' and the progress bar fills up, then goes to black and the laptop reboots.

I've already made backups today to be sure. I'll try booting with and without the HDD and with and without the DVD drive tomorrow morning. I tried booting from the win7 iso from the tutorial. Same black screen results. It works on a DVD on the host laptop. But the same DVD fails on my laptop, my CD/DVD rom drive has been malfunctioning for some time. I'll try the same iso on a bootable USB stick tomorrow. Whatever will get me to a command prompt will do. I can change the msconfig settings from there.

Then unplug the DVD drive and try booting flash stick installer.

What I would try first in a few Startup Repairs. It should offer to System Restore, but if not run that from the System Recovery Options
list.

Thinking out loud here...

Your second paragraph of the first post makes me think that your computer has 8GB of RAM but you may be using Windows 7 32-bit.

32-bit will only see up to 4GB (as you so aptly pointed out) but you changed the config to claim more than that, thus it hangs.

Try removing 4GB of RAM and reboot - this may force Win7 to throw an error and try to self-correct.

If it works, go back in and make sure the config is back to the original value, then reinsert the addition 4GB of RAM.


EDIT: It helps if I read your profile - 64-bit listed...never mind.

Regards,
GEWB

I tried booting the USB stick with and without HDD and with and without DVD. No results. Taking out my RAM and putting the old ram in was one of the first things I tried. Didn't work. I feel like I'm running out of options. Should I just format the drive and reinstall win7?

He cannot boot into Win7 to run a Repair Install.

Can you boot into System Recovery Options in the host machine? Does it detect the second OS?

If it does and you Repair it, then it will create a Dual Boot with the extant Win7 using it's boot files. Instead I would unplug all other HD"s except the problem one, boot into Options to run Startup Repairs to see if it will repair the boot on other hardware. If it won't repair or won't start after repairs then you can also boot and run Paragon Adaptive Restore CD to P2P Adjust the oS to boot on new hardware. Complete the repairs to where Win7 will start, then move it back to the other machine to see if it will start there.

If installation media won't boot on the host PC, then try a new ISO and DVD or flash stick burn until you get one that boots and sees the HD's.

If you're ready to give up at any point, you can copy out your files on the other PC, wipe the problem HD with Diskpart Clean Command, which should force the Win7 disk to autostart to Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums.

Alright. New problem.

I gave up and formatted the drive on the host laptop. I deleted all partitions and created a new 500gb partition which I formatted thoroughly. I then built everything back into the problem laptop.

The problem still exists.

It boots from my win7 USB stick but then gets stuck right after the "windows is loading files...". The screen turns to black and reboots. Was the problem not msconfig? I tried booting in parted magic, which works.

Why won't windows start the installation process?

Well. It's solved. After formatting my OS HDD I tried swapping the 8gb RAM for the original 4gb. And then the win7 installation USB stick worked.

Thanks everyone in this thread. Your help was really motivating.

Cheers,
William