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Operating system not found. I have tried acronics bootable media. It is said that unable to locate HDD.
But if I boot a live Linux cd opensuse/mandriva I can see my partitions. Shall I copy the recovery partition's all data to an external HDD?
There is a tiny partition with recovery partition which is 41 mb only and fat file system.
There is 3 partition on my disk 0
Partition 1 OEM 39 MB
Partition 2 primary 14 GB
Partition 3 primary 283 GB
I have a windows 7 pirated bootable cd. Can I take help from it?
Where did you buy counterfeit Windows 7?
Microsoft Store is always the trusted source to buy Windows 7, so buy Windows 7 in Microsoft Store.
Unfortunately, you can't validate Windows 7 if you have counterfeit Windows 7. And soon you may end up in Activate Windows now message. Which can annoy you and there's no way to get rid of it unless you buy Windows 7 from trusted source.
partition OEM is for recovery. Partition 2 is the RECOVERY partition itself I assume (?)
Partition 3 is most likely windows.
What is drive letter of 14GB partition. What is drive letter of 283GB partition. In this example I use P for 14GB and Q for 283GB partition.Code:diskpart list vol exit
Both are without errors? Or had some errors but chkdsk repaired it? If repaired... run commands again to see if everything is really reapired.Code:chkdsk/f P: chkdsk/f Q:
Is this really the win7 partition?Code:Q: dir \users dir "\program files" dir \windows
What partition is ACTIVE?Code:diskpart sel vol p: det part sel vol q: det part exit
OK it would appear to me that your Partitions are as follows ...
Partition 1 OEM 39 MB
OEM Bootstrap partition used to provide the OEM's own start-up system for recovery options, this partition is normally just used to "trap" the OEM designated key combination at boot to recover the system which is actually held on a secondary partition. unfortunately this partition can become corrupted with multiple OS installs such as you install of windows 8 which of course would not be recognised by the OEM software on this partition, which was written prior to the development of Windows 8. It is normally used to simply boot the actual recovery partition which will automatically perform the recovery install
Partition 2 primary 14 GB
This is the actual recovery partition and contains the full windows 7 installation as shipped from the factory
Partition 3 primary 283 GB
Usable partition for new install
Options
As the first partition appears to be corrupted, you can attempt to use a bootable CD/DVD partition manager, such as the one mentioned earlier in the thread, to mark the Second, (recovery partition), as active, and re-boot the system, if all goes correctly the system will boot into the recovery mode and automatically install Windows 7 as it was when originally purchased.
If the above does not work then the remaining option is the one suggested above by bare Foot Kid, of using another install disk and the OEM COA Sticker key from the system.
I would Strongly advise against using any "Pirate" copy for this, as you will never be sure that the OS is clean, but you may be able to loan a genuine install disk of the version of Windows you have the Key for from friends or family.
The last option is to contact your OEM and they should provide a set of genuine recovery disks, they will probably charge for this option but it may be your only option and the charge is normally reasonable