Hum just a suggestion but if this is a manufacturer / factory installed OS if you have an image - why not try the factory default settings key? I see from a quick Google the keys at boot are Alt + F10.
But not a good idea if you have load of stuff already loaded and if you haven't got it all imaged or backed up your boss might be a tad erm annoyed.
Good morning. Third day of repairing for this unlucky bird.
@gregrocker - Thanks man, I'll make sure to have a look at that thread, I think I haven't browsed that one yet from all the pile of threads I was checking yesterday in these forums. One thing, I already said that I managed to transform the RAW partition to NTFS thanks to Partition Wizard (from my Hiren's Boot USB), and all the data inside that partition is safe and sound. Then I switched it from Logical to Primary afterwards by using Partition Wizard again. Windows installation is in that particular partition by the way (as D:\Windows as stated by SFC /scanOS). I believe I fully tested that the partition is OK in all sense and only the BOOTMGR error is in need of a swat :) System Reserve and the "Main" one are both active right now.
@ICit2lol - Suggestion noted. As I said in a previous post, before fixing the RAW partition, I tried to use Vaio Care Rescue, a built in utility by SONY that apparently has plenty of tools for data recovery and what not. Problem is that when I tried that (by pressing the Assist button with the laptop powered off and by pressing F10 which is for the models that lack said Assist button), and error like this appeared in both cases:
Which in context was a dead end for me.
As a sidenote, when I tried to repair the RAW partition, apparently the Recovery partition was damaged as well (which might explain why it never loaded because I NEEDED TO ACCESS IT but it would never boot). In essence, when I fixed the RAW and turned it into a full working NTFS with all its data intact, the Recovery partition was wiped out. Now it has no volume nor format asigned, 13GB of floating partition demanding to be merged to something, but I think I will not do it just yet.
Anyway, proceeding to what I gonna attempt to do today in order to make that Win7 installation to boot and fix that dreaded missing BOOTMGR, I have now 2 Win7 HP DVDs, one of 64bits, and the other one... no clue. It is a genuine DVD for recovery issues for the server desktop, same Win7 HP but it doesn't says if it is 32bits or 64bitsMy last resort is to try to call WinRE from the unknown DVD and pray it is a 32bits one and that it can fix the also unknown ??bits installed in the laptop.
I don't like to place DVDs blindly expecting to guess by luck the correct one. I will carefully follow the tutorials in these forums to try to fix the BOOTMGR missing bit and see if it works with any of the DVDs. It will take hours but, it is better to give it a shot instead of sitting here doing nothing.
Will add data here is there is any progress. Thanks for lending me a hand for this odd ordeal
Edit: After squinting at the little letters and number around the inner ring of the unknown DVD, it is in fact another Win7 HP of 64bits. If odds are like this, my last resort is "witchcraft", but will not surrender yet.
Everything you need is in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot.
Please explain exactly how your recovered a RAW partition which normally means it is unrecoverable?
With the mess you have your best course of all would be to copy out your data and Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 sticking with the methods given there to maintain a perfect Win7 install.
Hmm... Honestly, I have no clue. Confirmed that the partition was in RAW fs, I readed yesterday in another site that someone managed to fix that by using Acronis, and another person answered some posts below that he managed the same results with Partition Magic. Hmm... *checking the list of URLs browsed yesterday*
Oh, right here, in this 881 days old thread I found the tip it moved me to use my Partition Wizard Mini-Tool inside Hiren's:
Help! My hard disk is RAW and not NTFS!
Would love to go the short route and clean reinstall everything, but a sword against my neck is telling me to don't do it, plus, this challenge is something that one must endure, for the sake of experience and to understand Windows better
Edit 1: I'm closer to something...
http://www.sony.es/support/es/produc...specifications
Looks like the 3 models related to the one I have on my desk all use Windows® 7 Home Premium original Service Pack 1 64 bits! Good news, now I don't need to insert DVDs blindly (nor resorting to "witchcraft" to summon a 32bits one). Thanks to a Twitter user for pointing me how to recognize the model of the laptop (they must have a sticker fetish, this one has almost all its belly covered by stickers with numbers, letters, symbols and Elvis' heads).
Edit 2: System Recovery Options recognized the installed OS at last *tears of joy*
Sorry, I couldn't resist my joy. Now the OS is working like the moment before it went haywire on the employee. I'm doing a quick scan and Autoruns.exe to check out if there is anything else to do and spot another problem, but for now, Win7 is flying againI needed to run twice the System Repair before it said he couldn't find anything else wrong. Oh, I'm so glad I found these forums boards, all the gurus camped here rocks me socks, woohoo
Last edited by Dead Canary; 20 May 2012 at 14:08. Reason: I has a happy
I see from the link that you used Partition Wizard Partition Recovery Wizard which is not the same as formatting over the drive in NTFS to recover a RAW partition. But it's nice to know PW Recovery Wizard which we use all of the time here can do this. Thank you.
Hey Greg I suppose if DC has a non functioning machine and I know the warranty creeps in here if there is a back up what about slipping in a new HDD and belt an OEM on it then try and get back the data using one of those little gadgets I use for accessing drives while they are outside of the machine.
Anyway DC I suppose that depends on your boss and the importance of the data you had on the original drive.
I am also wondering if you could sweep the offending drive for malware using another machine via the gadget? But it would mean taking out the drive and the warranty issue.
Either way: one can rescue stranded data by slaving the HD to another system, or using the Win7 DVD or Repair CD to Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console, or a boot CD like Hiren’s BootCD 15.1 or Paragon rescue disk to recover data.
Good reminder to go ahead and run virus scan using your AV and full scan with updated Malwarebytes. I'd also proactively test your system files with SFC -SCANNOW Command
I am aware about how to retrieve data from a failing HDD, either by entomb it inside one of my coffers or enslaving it to another machine and using either Hiren's or my SlaxOS copy to work around it.
I'm able to retrieve data from brick'd SEAGATEs as well, with the help of some homebrew "device" (I have cute pics about it) to make the bricks to spin past their firmware bug that this kind of model still has (sadly a very widespread model). However I ignore how to pry out a HDD without voiding the warranty or how to "belt" an OEM; sounds fun to try though!
@gregrocker - Just so you can have some laughs, this man bought Panda 2012 a little while ago, and despite I asked him to switch to a better one, he said that until his license permits, he will not switch to another more "capable" AV. Before delivering today the laptop, past night I made a little clean up with CCleaner, his Panda and Malwarebytes I freshly downloaded for the occasion. A little summary of it:
-CCleaner results = 125 GB in trash data
-Panda (after running a full scan for 2 hours!) = 27 cookie virus variants
-Malwarebytes = A troyan tuck inside a CorelDrawX crack (I suppose Panda whitelisted this one?)
(now that I recall it, I ran SCANNOW after using DISKPART to enable both working partitions, said it needed to reboot to apply repairs though and that's what I did with the correct DVD - I'll use SCANNOW right now to double check just in case
Edit: It is curious, I'm doing SCANNOW from WinRE and it still says that there are pending repairs. I reboot and rerun SFC but keeps saying the same. What will that mean? Startup Repair can't find anything strange. Now I'm left puzzled again, but I suppose it is not a serious issue because the computer works fine anyway).
After updating with WU for whatever was slacking behind, I rebooted the system like 4 or 5 times, each time booted faster and faster... With Autoruns I found nothing out of the ordinary, but I suppose his Cobian copy working in the background and asking every time it reboots to allow it to modify files in the system, is making his laptop way slower than it is supposed to be
Again, cheers and thanks a lot for the help
FWIW: I had a friend with a windows XP machine with almost the same symptums (sic...)
I bought and ran Steve Gibson's Spinrite product and it took almost 4 hours but It all worked fine after that and the first thing I did was to make an acronis image....
Rich
If he has a trojan from cracked software then it's likely there are more and some will not be cleaned up without dedicated searches for the exact tool which cleans it best.
In badly infected systems with dodgy software the best course is a Clean Reinstall after wiping the HD, then after setup capturing a backup image in case the owner can't help his bad self.
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