Repair Install

Brink, I want to say thank you very much for this tutorial.

Yesterday I turned on my computer and it went with the booting process normally, it entered windows and showed my desktop but then it sent two exception errors, one on explorer.exe and one on dwm.exe which is the desktop window management process. Anyhow after that I got a blue screen and had to restart but I only got a black screen, no windows logo at all, nor could get the boot menu (when you press F8). So I did a recovery from the Windows 7 installation DVD, it remained the same so what I did was to remove the bcd file in the boot folder which handles the boot of window, that did the trick and with the Windows 7 DVD I restored it and managed to boot in Windows.

All seemed normal, no issues, no files or programs lost, I did a chkdsk to my disk and no errors were found on it so I continued my day, you know browsing internet and such. But then I created a folder to extract some files from a .rar file I downloaded and when I tried to rename it I got the infamous item couldn't be found window and the try again button, I clicked on it and the folder got renamed. Oddly enough this behavior was only on the folders, I could rename files and didn't got the error at all, also didn't got error on deleting the folders neither.

Anyhow I tried the typical solutions about that it was caused by one of the Windows 7 updates but nothing worked. I also noticed that in the libraries the public folders (Public Documents, Public Music, Public Videos) had a (C: ) after their names, like if they were redirected to another disk or something. It was like if the disk had two letters or something, this because I noticed that when I used a special boot disk I have with lots of utilities, it has one that is NTFS Dos Pro 5.0 and you can mount the disks NTFS so you can check them on a DOS environment and I noticed that it was mounting the Disk C: two times, why I don't know. The partition programs only showed two disks the main one and the backup one, I don't have them partitioned neither, so I really don't know what caused that behavior on the disk because other than that there was no problems at all. the disk was fully operable and such, in fact it is a new disk I barely have a month with it and cloned my Windows installation from the 320 GB one which used to be the C: disk before I bought this new one but that process went flawlessly since I could rename folders and all fine till yesterday.

Well After nothing was working I was about to bang my head on my desk because I was afraid of my only exit would be a clean install, but then browsing internet (remember other than the folders issue everything else was working flawlessly) a light came to me in the form of this topic. I have to admit I had my doubts about this because when I had XP and did repair installs most times I ended with a slowed down windows and with problems to reinstall updates and such, but I was so desperate yesterday and I said what the hell, let's try it. So I did it, I went through all the process, only message I got was that there would be issues with Magic CD which is a program I use to mount CD and DVD ISO images so I wouldn't waste time burning them on real CDs and DVDs but other than that no other issues got reported, actually it was a compatibility report issue but the program do work in Windows 7 so I kept going.

So the process went on its way, gathered my programs and files info and settings and all that stuff. In the meanwhile I went to get me a Coke and a bag of Cheetos and I watched TV while waiting

There was no error messages during the process, Windows files got copied and expanded, my programs and files settings got restored back to their rightful places and such, and when I finally was back to Windows I did what you explained about the activation of disable to try to activate when I'm online, I setted the time and date (well just time, date was correct), my type of network and I finally was back to Windows.

I'm pleased to say that my issue with the folders vanished. Every icon, personal file and program was where it should be. Windows Live Messenger logued in flawlessly and it even had the Messenger plus add-on installed and working liked I had it before the repair. I only reinstalled the Magic CD program and let the indexer do its work to rebuild the indexing file for the search while I checked my other programs and files. Firefox works flawlessly too, the libraries aren't showing anymore the (C: ) after the name, I even installed a little game to see if all was fine with installing programs and all went fine.

I even feel my PC working faster than before

I didn't got a windows.old folder, I only got the other two folders, guess it was because it retained all my settings. I checked the other two folders just in case but there was none of my files I could need to copy, most of the files were .ini or .sys files of the old windows installation and the themes files from the old Windows installation. My own themes were on the personalize window and all of them worked without problem.

So really. thank you very much. You saved my life from having to spend all sunday reinstalling programs which I have a lot installed

Is there a way to repair W7 using the DVD when booting?
Starup repair could not fix the problem and I can't load the OS.
I have a dual boot with XP which running OK. Can that can help?
Unfortunately, W7 didn't save any Sys restore points...

Thanks

Thanks, (that's the tutorial we're in) the thing is, it can only work if you are logged in, which I can't.

You can only do a repair install from within Windows 7, you cannot do a repair install at boot or in Safe Mode.
You must be logged into Windows 7 in a administrator account to be able to do a repair install

Was really Hoping to avoid that, but I guess there's no other option.
Wondering why MS didn't enabled a full boot repair just like in XP.

Thanks.

After trying severals ways to the problem to no avial, I did a fresh install with ease just as you suggested .
All files and setting are found at the 'windows.old' folder, so i can reinstall all my apps and restore them to the way they were.

During this procedure i've read about the System File Checker. maybe that was the solution as you can load the Cammand Prompt at boot. think it is worth a try for those who can't reach the OS.


Shawn, thanks again for your help and those excellent tutorials.