SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the link; I tried to follow it, but I couldn't seem to get it to work.

I booted up using my Windows 7 installation disc, but when I select "Repair your computer," I only see the blank blue background; there's no menu for me to choose what OS I would like to restore. I can only assume this means either there's a problem with the SSD connection itself, or the Win7 installation on the SSD is not being detected.

Any thoughts?

Hi Bare Foot Kid.

Unfortunately, no. I got the little spinning circle ribbon indicating it was thinking/processing something, and then it changed back to the regular white mouse cursor, but there was nothing else; no dialogs or popups, just the blue background.

I'm not sure if this helps, but when nothing happened after 20 minutes I tried pressing <Shift> + F10 and also <Esc> just to make sure it was still responsive.

Pressing <Shift> + F10 brought up the command prompt as usual.

Pressing <Esc> brought up a popup asking if I wanted to quit the installation; when I gave confirmation it did not take me back to the page with the "Install Now" and "Repair your computer" options like it normally would, but just sat there with an empty blue background.

I just checked the Crucial site and couldn't find anything in the form of diagnostic tools. There was also nothing that came with the SSD itself.

Will do, thanks.

If I ever manage to get it worked out, I'll post the outcome here.

derp55 said:

Hello all,

I could really use some help in getting my SSD up and running again.

I've been using a Crucial C300 128 GB SSD to run Windows 7 Ultimate x64, but yesterday upon resuming from Sleep mode it crashed, and since then I've been unable to start Windows. It will go to the "Starting Windows" screen with the pulsing logo and never move forward.

I've since given up on the data currently in that SSD and would just like to be able to use it again. As such, I've followed the tutorial posted here, but when I get to the command prompt and try to run diskpart, I get the line:
"On computer: MINWINPC"
and a blinking cursor. Nothing happens.

Does this mean my SSD is dead?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Hello again,

I was able to resolve this issue using the nifty tool GParted.

I booted into GParted using a Live USB, and from there I was able to get some information about my SSD. GParted reported a lot of bad sectors and was unable to read any parameters off the drive. Actually, it seemed to not even know what format the drive was in, so I went ahead and formatted it to NTFS; I'm pretty sure that ruined any chances of reclaiming data off the SSD, but I was okay with that.

After that, I tried booting with the Win7 installation disc to see if the read problem with the drive was fixed. Indeed, diskpart no longer hanged indefinitely like before, and I was able to use your great tutorial to get a clean Win7 install back onto the SSD.

Activating a clean install of Win7 with an upgrade key was another headache, but that's a different issue.

Thanks for everything!