Lost all data on Asus, tried to recover and won't boot

I am using an Asus laptop using Windows 7. It suddenly crashed the other day. It had run out of batter, so when I charged the battery and ran the laptop again, suddenly I was taken to a screen where I had to restore the laptop to its original factory settings and then lost all my data. I then installed and ran TestDisk to try to recover my data. After using it to search for the partitions, I restarted the laptop.



Now, I am always taken to a Windows Boot Manager screen. It asks me to insert the Windows installation disc. However, this laptop never came with one. In fact, it doesn't even have a CD drive, as I would have to buy a seperate external CD drive. It also says "If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance. Status: 0xc00002225 Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible"



Is there any way I can get out of this menu and retrieve my lost data? Or should I just contact Asus for assistance?

For that link, the first step is "Start Windows 7, and log on to an administrator account." However, I can't even do that because whenever I start up the laptop, I'm taken to the Windows Boot Manager screen, which I can't get out of

I first tried several times to download Puppylinux and burn it to a CD, but whenever I restarted the computer, I was taken to the Windows desktop screen and never to the Puppylinux screen

I then tried to boot the machine with a System Repair flash disk created via the backup menu on a Windows 8 machine onto an external USB disk. I then tried to run that USB drive on the Asus laptop running Windows 7. However, when I go to Advanced Options and then Startup Repair, I get a message saying Startup Repair couldn't repair your PC. I'm not sure what to do now?

Since you have factory installed Win7 the link you'd want is Clean Reinstall Windows 7.
Everything is provided to get and keep a perfect reinstall, as long as you stick closely with the steps, tools and methods.

It's too bad you jumped into Factory Recovery before asking because as you'll read in the tutorial there is a step to rescue your data and you could have also tried Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start. But now if you ran Recovery it formatted over your data so that it is not recoverable. Be sure to heed the steps about backing up for your new install.

I was able to download Windows 7 onto a USB successfully and boot it from my Asus machine. However, when I am at step 7 of the link below, I see 4 options to install Windows, and each one says at the bottom "Windows cannot be installed to [name of partition, for example, this disk or Disk 0 Partition 1]":

Clean Install Windows 7

Should I just delete all of these?

gregrocker said:

I wonder if it's possible that your data survived somewhere on C. Do you remember what exactly you chose for Recovery? It should warn you that your data is being wiped out if you don't choose to save it, providing that choice is given. So maybe if you first browse into C using the Win7 disk you'll get lucky and see it so you can Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console. Try that first.

Appreciate your help, however I'm still having problems

How do I browse into C using the Win7 disk? By following the steps in that Windows Recovery Console link In steps 2-3 of that Windows Recovery Console link, after I click on "Repair your computer", instead of being able to click on "load drivers" I get the message "This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows". Why am I getting this message when my USB drive clearly contains Win 7 and my Asus runs Win 7?