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Windows crashed. Now can't boot, even in repair mode or safe mode.
Let me open by saying I'm too old to understand most of the jargon and directions found in a technical forum like this. I've been trying to fix this myself for about two weeks, and have made so many changes, I've probably made a complete hash of it.
The latest thing I did was to attempt a fresh install of Windows from a DVD. I had to format the C drive to have enough space for the installation, so I did. The installation seemed to running normally, so I took our dog for a walk. When I came back, there was this error message: "Installation was cancelled."
The details of the error message are as follows: "Windows cannot install required files. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restate the installation. Error code: 0x80070070"
My fear is that my hard drive has failed. When it's trying to boot up, there's always a line that says something to the effect that no drives were found. However, when running GPart from a disc, it finds both C & D. I tried to use one of the GPart tools to repair C, but it didn't work. It said I need to "Run chkdsk /f, the reboot TWICE." I can't do that, because I can't get it to boot into a command prompt.
I think I already destroyed all of my data on D, where it was all stored, in trying to install Windows. At one point, it told me that Windows could not proceed with formatting if D was excluded, so I removed the exclusion. I think that was a bad mistake.
By the way, I was able to boot from a Linux DVD (Xubuntu). From that OS, I was able to see user accounts on C. Those should not exist, after repeatedly trying to format that drive. Somehow, I seem to have formatted D (which I wanted to save), and failed to formal C.
As I said, I'm in way over my head here. Any help, in language plain enough for a simpleton like me, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, in advance.