Computer won't boot to Windows 7 pro - have tried everything

i'm back into the PW cd, but there's nothing clearly identified as the Windows 7 partition, so i'm working with the largest partition. nothing's lettered or id'd. there's no grey border or anything else i can "grab". i tried right clicking the only NTFS partition i show and move/resize and tried to increase the partition size manually. on the screen, the numbers would transfer from "unallocated space before" to the "partition," but after i was done, it wouldn't keep it. did you look at the photo i posted? does it look like i have the correct software version??

rightclick on the partition to Explore. Do you see the Windows folder, your data?

Was this the Win7 partition? Did you delete it or do any partitioning that makes it questionable that it's there? Where else would it be?

explore is grayed out on both the NTFS and unallocated. i can see all my data if i go in with the command prompt and use "dos" to look. i haven't done anything to the partition or deleted it or any of that. i will be honest and say that the computer was handed over to me in this state, so i do not know if the owner tried any of that, but i doubt he would know how to do it. he may have tried to do a repair out of curiosity and instinct....

When you rightclick on Win7 partition to Resize, a pop-up box appears. On the drive map, you will see the left border of the partition and the unallocated space to it's left. Grab the left border with your mouse by left clicking to hold, then drag that border to the left. OK, then Apply. No one has had a problem doing this before.

Every version of PW after 5.2 will Resize Primary into Logical free space. But if not try rightclicking the empty space to Delete Volume first.

well, we got through it! i ran the windows recover disk and the windows 7 partition was finally listed and it went into an automatic scan/repair before i even did anything. i am now back online, but the only thing is that it only did an auto repair once and after that, it was working.

can you help me determine what triggered this nightmare?

Did you run Rebuild MBR from PW Disk before trying Startup Repair again? I'm just asking.

It is hard to say what caused the Repair to finally work. Was the installation detected earlier to repair? Did you note what was reported in the Repair details?

Since we are dealing with the boot sector here, I thought it might be important to resize Win7 back over it. This was only a hunch and may or may not have had an effect. Sometimes resizing Win7 over the boot sector requires Repairs so we know it can matter. If the installation only showed up to repair after that then it likely contributed.


Here are troubleshooting steps you can use to monitor your System resources for problems, check logs for repeat errors to resolve, generate a System Health Report, test hardware if ever indicated, etc.

I would also immediately scan your system with Belarc Advisor to audit the installed Product Keys including that of Win7, in case you need to reinstall. After determining if Win7 is running fine, also save a backup image which can reimage your HD in 20 minutes if Win7 ever becomes irreparable. Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup


You can mark the thread solved at top.