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

Let me try again: What were you trying to do exactly with PW when it said it couldn't find Windows Directory? You said you were trying to set it as Windows Boot partition which is not a feature that I know about on PW CD. Were you trying to Rebuild MBR? If not, click on Disk1 now and attempt Rebuild MBR.

If this fails, your Win7 partition lacks the System flag which means that you need to run Startup Repair repeatedly until it writes or repairs the System boot files to/on the partition.

While you're at it you can rightclick C to Resize, drag left grey border to left to take up the 55mb which is sitting on the boot sector. It shouldn't matter, but might.

Can you contact the seller to find out the Product Key. Win7 is not supposed to be sold without a COA sticker showing it's geniune. With a Product Key we can help you find an installer to clean reinstall - otherwise if we can't get Win7 started to audit the Product key you may have to buy another, or install XP if it has a COA sticker on the machine with readable Product key.

when it said it failed to find the windows directory, i had right clicked the 148.96gb line and selected "set windows boot partition"

i ran the mbr rebuild, and it completed successfully, but i am still not able to boot into windows.

i tried to follow your instructions for the resize, but wasn't able to really get it.

is there a way to make a bootable belarc advisor cd? i could extract the serial key that way...

No the activation file is too heavily encrypted to extract it without booting Windows.

Again I ask you what you were doing when it said it failed to find Windows directory? Never heard of it.

What happens when you rightclicked on large partition to Resize, then drag the left grey border to the left to take up the unallocated space? Click OK and then Apply.

I've now asked you several times about Startup Repair without any assurance you did it three separate times with reboots while Win7 partition is marked Active. We need better feedback to help you.

one thing at a time here. first off, the automatic repair worked once, but after i restarted it's just telling me that it can not automatically repair anything. the only other message instructs me to remove any kind of removable media like an mp3 player or some such thing. i've tried plenty more than 3 times.

i am working on the BCD now. i've made a bootable usb stick (possibly what that auto repair stopped at - the "mp3 player"), but i don't know how to run BCD once i'm in the windows recovery environment.

Kaktussoft said:

bags305 said:

i've used different windows discs, tried startup repair 10 times, sfc /scannow, chkdsk /r, and all sorts of other things. "system volume is corrupt" and whenever i try system restore it won't find the o/s. same thing when i first go into system recovery options - there's no o/s listed and it wants me to load drivers, which i don't know where to get.

this was an xp pro dell that was reinstalled with windows 7 pro from a master disk. i don't have the original disk and won't be able to get it, as i bought this used off someone.

any ideas? i have heard about rebuilding the master boot record, but don't really know how to do that. or maybe you know which drivers to load and where to get them?

"system volume is corrupt"
Boot into recovery environment and enter "command prompt"

Code:

 
DISKPART
LIST VOL
SELECT VOL #X (where #X is volume number of your windows partition)
DETAIL VOL

Please post output.
Is your windows partirion accessible?
DIR C:\
DIR D:\
Do you seee windows files?

i had to stop at list vol, as only the cd-rom was showing up. i did detail vol on it anyway and it said "there are no disks attached to this volume."

i can access c: drive and whatever other drive is attached and see the files as well.

i tried making a bootable version, but i can't seem to get easyBCD to start up - i only get the windows RE

Boot back in to PW CD, rightclick on Win7 partition to Resize, grab the left grey border and drag it to the left to take up the Unallocated Space, click OK, then Apply.

Once it's a full partition including the boot sector, click on Disk1 to highlight it, from Disk tab select Rebuild MBR, Apply. Post back exactly what happens including any error messages verbatim.

Now boot into Win7 DVD to run Startup Repair 3 separate times with reboots no matter what it reports.

If this fails, boot into System Recovery Options
open a Command Line, type
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootsect.exe /nt60 ALL /force