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#1
Need System Recovery Options Advice - will not boot
Been playing with this for about a week...
Acer Aspire laptop - one day it booted with the following
- PXE-E61: Media test failure e, check cable
- PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM
- No bootable device - insert boot disk and press any key
Then it stopped. I put in the CD, selected Repair and booted only to find no operating system listed in the System Recovery Options box. After it finishes searching - to no avail - it brings up another box that reads
Windows found problems with your computer's startup options Do you wish to apply repairs and restart your computer?If I select Repair and restart I get another box that reads Failed to save startup options.
Clicking OK takes me back to the 1st System Recovery Options box - the one without an OS. Although I am presented with an options to Load Drivers, I have no idea where to find them. Why doesn't an operating system as sophisticated as Windows 7 have an automated procedure in place to find the drivers?
Anyway, if I click Next the system assumes that I've selected a system image backup (why?), then displays a message indicating that it cannot find the system image that I've supposedly selected to install.
A couple of Cancels later, and I'm on the Choose a recovery tool screen. Startup Repair only takes me to the Windows found problems... message mentioned above.
System Restore won't work without an OS.
Command Prompt does show me that my folders are intact. If I navigate to C\Windows and attempt to type
bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd
I only get as far as the attrib command because there is no BCD file in the Boot folder, only a backup that I apparently created a few days ago while trying to fix this. I then pulled the BCD off the Windows 7 CD and copied it to the Boot folder, tried to reboot, got the same No Bootable device, went back to the recovery console and ran the
bootrec /RebuildBcd
It found the C:\Windows installation and asked me if I wanted to add the installation to the boot list. Hitting a Y told me that The requested system device cannot be found.
When I looked in the Boot folder I see that the BCD file that I'd copied from the CD has been renamed to BCD.Backup.0002 (there already was the .0001 file).
It seems absolutely ridiculous that I have to remove the drive, backup all my files and reinstall Windows, when I've already got a Windows folder, and all my files, music and pictures are already in place on the drive.
Windows XP had a facility to let you do a repair install of the operating system. Why do I not see anything similar in Windows 7?
And what do I do next? I (successfully) ran the bootrec /fixboot and /fixmbr commands, but they failed to effect any change.