Have you booted from the disk and tried startup repair. Try disconnecting all the other drives except the hard drive Windows is on. try running startup repair. Startup Repair. You may have to run it 3 times with attempted boots in between each run. If it says it cannot find a Windows install, try marking the system partition active, using the command prompt. Partition - Mark as Active
Yes thanks, I've tried multiple boots on startup repair. Up to 5 at least on some attempts! On each occasion it says it has been unable to do the repair and offers me the opportunity to do a recovery. This also fails. The only way to get things working again is to go to safe mode which then immediately starts the 'reverting changes' procedure as previously outlined.
PS I probably should reiterate at this point that after installing SP1 it does reboot as far as the 'starting windows' splash screen (ie with the four bits of flying colour) before giving up the ghost. However, which disk partition does this come from? If this is where/when the drives change over, you could be on to something though regarding the 'active' partition and so on?
Because of the failure of Repair install and Startup Repair I know of nothing else to do except a Clean Install.
Here is a tutorial by Brink.
Clean Install Windows 7
Just stopping in to offer a few suggestions, you might have already done some of this
There are three things that perked up my ears:
1) Chkdsk stopped at 65% (post# 13) - this might be a misread on my part, maybe that's the last time you looked.
2) Two disk 'failures' (post# 14)
3) Access denied (post# 33)
1 (unexpected end) & 2 (two drives) seem to indicate a controller issue.
Look at the Disk Check events (I'm loading the AppEvt.zip now and System.zip ).
Check Disk (chkdsk) - Read Event Viewer Log
If you ran chkdsk offline (Repair or Install disc), then there isn't an event to view
I didn't see anything in the App events that indicate anything (chkdsk runs and fixed anything found, but most were nothing found).
There was an older event in the System log event 11
Custom dynamic link libraries are being loaded for every application. The system administrator should review the list of libraries to ensure they are related to trusted applications. Please visit Working with the AppInit_DLLs registry value for more information.
-> I have no clue if this has any bearing on the current issue, but it is a warning and you might want to put on your thinking cap to see if the dates of the events and things you installed or uninstalled around the time mean anything to you.
Might as well look though
Open an elevated Command Prompt and enter the following command:reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows"If I read the support page right, AppInit_DLLS should be nullAppInit_DLLs REG_SZ
Viewing chkdsk events:
Filter the Application Log (right click, Filter current log).
Select all but verbose Event Levels,
then in the Event Sources box, select Chkdsk and Wininit, press [OK]
All of these steps are routine maintenance, but for your machine, the disk activity might force an error that was only a slight problem. Windows disk management usually recovers and takes care of moving good files to good spots on the disk. Usually....
Before you begin: Do you have a good backup of your data? Please make a backup if you can, before proceeding
Clean up temporary files
Restart your machine in case there are any system operations pending
Click here to download Old Timer-TFC.
>> save the application to your Desktop.
Old Timer-TFC is a standalone application, there is no install.
Save your work and close all open windows.
TFC will close ALL open programs including your browser!
Right click, run as administrator TFC
Click the Start button to begin the cleaning up temporary files and folders.
If TFC prompts you to reboot, do so immediately.
Clean up Windows and the disk
Run Disk Cleanup as administrator
type cleanmgr in the Start menu search box
right click Disk Cleanup in the results and pick Run as administrator
Select all boxes
Optional - can be done laterPress the [Cleanup System files] buttonAnswer yes to any prompt - after reviewing the message. If your not certain, ask.
Press the [Cleanup ...] button under System Restore and Shadow copies
Press [OK]
There is a kb that allows Windows Updates to be cleaned in Disk Cleanup - but I think it requires SP1 .... just a notation.
Disable hibernation:
Launchh an elevated Command Prompt (Right click, select Rin as administrator...)
type the following commandspowercfg /h offthere is no output
exit
Run Defrag on C:, if there are many passes, more than 5, run a few manual defrags. I try to get down to 3 or 4 passes, but that might take a while on your machine. Run one and let me know how many passes it took. This is an art, not a science.
That's all I can think at the moment. The access denied will make me think about the issue from a different perspective. If I come up with anything on that, I'll post it.
Bill
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Thanks for the responses. It will be a few days before I get chance to go through it all but will report back then. Cheers
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