Windows Stopped Booting

I have two HDs on my desktop PC and Win 7 installed on both of them. Recently there have been issues when trying to load either copy of windows.

One tells me there is disk inconsistencies and the disk needs to be checked. The other loads up the startup repair and tells me it's been repaired and to reboot my PC. When I reboot my PC the same process repeats.

I tired reinstalling a fresh copy of Windows but all that did is give me three Windows 7 OS to choose from when it asks me which one to load.

At this point I don't care if I have to format both of my HDs, I'd just like to get a copy of Windows working. It's weird that both copies on separates HDs stopped booting, could it be a virus? Anyways, please advise.

I've installed Windows on two separate HDs because at one point Windows wouldn't boot. As a means to access my files on the HD that had Windows installed, I installed it on my other HD. A few days later the booting issue I had with the original HD/copy of windows ceased and I was able to load it normally.

When I unplug one HD, the main startup screen comes up (the one with my MOBOs manufacturer) then it changes to a black screen with a white "_" symbol that continuously blinks. I think this happens because it's not given a boot device priority. However, when entering BIOS and trying to change my boot device priority the HD that is left plugged doesn't show up. Maybe because it's not my primary HD?

When I unplug the other HD, the PC boots up just as I explained in my OP. Same issues persist.

Is there a way to just format one HD (without doing it through the Windows DVD) and try installing a fresh copy of Windows.

PS
How do I pull up my disk management screen without being able to load Windows?

Why is your Win7 messing up so easily? Are you doing lots of tweaking or mods which WIn7 will not tolerate?

What I would do is plug in one HD, boot the WIn7 installer to get a perfect install following these steps: Reinstalling Windows 7

After install, plug in the other HD and format it for storage, save a Win7 backup image there as soon as it's set up and running best.

Then don't do any tweaking or optimizing outside of normal System settings, Registry cleaners, questionable downloads, etc. The rest of the best-practices maintenance steps are in the steps I posted above.

Graemzy said:

if you are goin to format you could try doing it with an xp disk, i have had problems with tryin to format with 7 before,

if you have an xp disk, try format with that, then after the format pull the disk before it copies the xp files over, windows wont like this but just stick in the win7 disk and carry on from there!

as for the blinkin line, this happens when windwos is tryin to boot from a usb device for example, i guessing you hdd is usb, and there is no OS on the usb. this is from my experience so somebody please corrct me if im wrong and please explain!

maybe you windows files on that hdd have become corrupt and it is still tryin to boot from usb first!

The HD is not USB, it's plugged in via SATA which is the same way the other HD is plugged in. No idea why it's not recognizing in the boot device priority in my bios.

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello.


Leave only the HDD with the Windows on you want to keep connected to the motherboard and set it as the second boot device after the CD/DVD drive, if that Windows 7 partition is not "System Active" in windows 7 disk management, make it so and do the 3 separate startup repairs to (re)create the Windows System boot files to that partition.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

If you want to wipe secure erase the HDD to reinstall, have a look at this tutorial linked below.

Secure Erase / Wipe : Definition and Methods

gregrocker said:

Why is your Win7 messing up so easily? Are you doing lots of tweaking or mods which WIn7 will not tolerate?

What I would do is plug in one HD, boot the WIn7 installer to get a perfect install following these steps: Reinstalling Windows 7

After install, plug in the other HD and format it for storage, save a Win7 backup image there as soon as it's set up and running best.

Then don't do any tweaking or optimizing outside of normal System settings, Registry cleaners, questionable downloads, etc. The rest of the best-practices maintenance steps are in the steps I posted above.

Britton30 said:

Another question, do you have separate keys for each Windows 7 installation? The WAT, Windows Activation Technology may be hampering you.

I've seen the blinking cursor after POST when there is no bootmgr to be read.

I ended up formatting both HDs through the Win 7 installation process and I was able to install a fresh copy without any issues. I've honestly no idea what happened or what could have caused the issue. The PC belongs to the old folks and they certainly don't know how to tweak and mess around with the OS, they use it mainly for paying bills, browsing the net, emails, etc.

Anyways all seems to be working now, it's a shame I lost all their files through the format but such is life. Thanks all for your replies and help! :)

We're sorry you lost the files too.

Normally if we'd known you had stranded files and were going to reinstall we'd have let you know you can copy your files out of a non-booting OS using free Paragon Rescue CD or the Win7 Repair CD: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

But we hadn't gotten that far yet.

Hope you got the perfect install suggested. Save the backup image and keep the folks files backed up to the secondary HD using scheduled Windows Backups and you'll have it much easier next time. We can guide you.

Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
Backup User and System Files