New
#1
Boot failure: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device...
Win 7 Pro 64-bit SP1 system (ASUS P9X79 PRO LGA 2011, Crucial SSDs) began failing to boot
after a system lockup while using Chrome. System was current with all MS updates. No
response to Alt-Ctrl-Del or front panel reset switch. Required a power-down.
Upon booting up after the preceding lockup, normal BIOS initialization was followed by the message: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" and the system refused to boot into Windows.
Ultimately, I used Paragon to restore a relatively recent disk image backup and things were essentially back to normal. During a restart a few days later, following AVG update, the above boot failure occurred again. This time image restore did not fix the problem. The SSD was recognized by the BIOS and Paragon, but could not be made bootable. The above message appeared whenever the system attempted to use it to boot up.
Previously created Windows Recovery CD turned out not to be bootable (yes, should've tested it after I created it!) and booting up with the original Windows install disc to repair the system produces a message that complains that the version on the disc is not compatible with the installation.
Replaced the 120GB OS SSD with a new unit and restored the above image. Again, things were essentially back to normal, so at that point it looked like a bad SSD.
After several weeks (today), Windows Update failed. "Creating System Restore" point failed to complete, so I canceled (gracefully) and exited WU. I rebooted after deleting a number of Restore Points created the day before (these were RPs created by a series of Native Instrument update installs).
On restart, the system failed to boot with the same message from above ("Reboot and Select ...").
Tried restoring the image again, but the boot sequence went directly to Startup Repair, which failed to repair the problem, ultimately stating that ntoskernel.exe is corrupted (IIRC this can mean anything from an actually corrupted file to a missing MBR to bad media).
During the most recent attempt, Startup Repair exited, the system rebooted, and I'm now getting the "Reboot and Select..." message again.
UEFI boot sequence is Optical Drive, "UEFI" (Windows Boot Manager) and "P1: ...", that last of which is actually one of my data drives, and shouldn't have any boot sector, etc. Not sure why it's in the list as option #3 (I didn't do the original build).
So I'm wondering what the options are here, specifically, to identify what could be wrong. I'd prefer to find a way to get my disk image back and ideally fix the problem permanently. But if it sounds like a drive controller or mobo issue, then I'll probably have to start looking at a new system. The 3-year-old ASUS mobo would be $450-ish to replace and at this point that's more than I'd like to spend on a repair (as opposed to a new system).
Quote