Cannot Boot From Recovery CD

Hello,

I am turning to this forum for help again after a sudden crash and days of trying to fix it. I have a Dell Inspiron N5010 with Core i5. This thread describes well where I am: Unable to boot win7, recovery console unresponsive Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums. After performing this, my computer boots only to the diagnostics screen ("test Memory, Test System, Exit". Still cannot get to Windows, System Restore, Safe Mode or anything else.

None of the boot fixes or rebuilding worked. Now the recovery disk does not even list Windows 7 under operating system, though I can still go to Command Prompt, which opens up with an "X">Sources.

I would like to try to disinfect windows from the Command Prompt in the recovery environment, if you could tell me how to do that. I have been running Malwarebytes and Microsoft Security Essentials, with no security issues in ages. But a few days ago I received an email titled "Crack". I deleted it without opening, but the trouble started soon after, so I don't know...

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Diana

The recovery cd that you have is to launch Factory Recover and reinstall windows?
Do you have a win 7 installation disk?

Boot from the a win 7 installation disk, go to Repair and launch a CMD window
Type
chkdsk c: /f

If check disk doesn't find any bad clusters or bad blocks

Type
sfc /scannow

thanks, Megahertz. It's a relief to hear from you. Yes, I have Windows 7 reinstallation disk that came with computer. This is first time I've used it. Followed your directions. First step said "Windows has checked the file system and found no problems." After the scan, message was "There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again."

I am sure that if I restart, it will boot into the diagnostics screen. I think following the partition commands in the link I referenced in first post changed something basic.

The good news is that you don't have any disk problems.
Some updates need to prepare them when the computer is shutdown and then on next boot, prior to the OS, it finish the update installation.
What happen in fist place that took you to try to fix it?
Can you describe, step by step, what you did?

I didn't shut down, but without warning, my computer was trying to do startup repair. If I shut down and restarted, back to same (blue screen with bird). After many hours, it said Windows could not be repaired automatically. Message said "Root Cause Found: Boot configuration is corrupt. Repair action: Partition table repair. Result: Failed. Error Code 0x490." So I tried the bootrec.exe from Windows Prompt in Recovery disk (which always starts with X>Sources.) None worked--Fixboot, ScanOs. RebuildBcd. I went through exporting the Bcd, too, but always I got the result Windows Installations Found: 0.
So I tried the disk partition commands
diskpart
list disk
Then select disk where you installed Windows with command :
select disk #
(# is number of your disk)
list partition
Then select your System Reserved partition (System Reserved is 100MB partition) with following command :
select partition #
(# is number of your System Reserved partition from list partition command)
Then type :
active

I think Windows was 0, and the 100 MB System Reserved partition was 1. So I think I made the Diagnositcs partition active. Maybe that's what I need to undo first?

On OEM installations, normally the boot loader isn't on the C: partition but on a System partition (0=fist). Windows (C) is on the second and the the Factory Recover image is on the third partition.
On the System partition you also have the Factory Recover program that restore the image into C: .
I don't have a OEM computer so I'm not sure, but I think that the System partition is the one that should be Active.
Wait for someone else with more experience on Dell laptops.

Ok, thanks. I've waited this long...might as well keep waiting!

Diana:

I assume your computer is several years old. This means that your hard drive is several years old. Since you have to reinstall everything anyway, you might consider getting a new hard drive, or perhaps an SSD. Your hard drive will eventually fail anyway, and who knows how much damage the apparent malware attack did.

By getting a new hard drive or an SSD, you will have a bigger and faster drive, and you will have set the "hard drive failure clock" back to zero. This would be a good opportunity to upgrade to an SSD, if you have been thinking of doing that.

Hopefully all damage done by the malware is limited to your current hard drive. However, if the malware was able to inject itself into a chip in the computer, then a new drive won't fix it. I've never heard of such a thing, but you never know these days.

Personally, I would go with a new drive if I couldn't do a factory refresh on the current drive.

Good luck!

Jim

Hi Jim
The computer is 6 years old so I am planning to get a new computer. But first I'd like to retrieve a few things off this computer. Can you tell me how to do that?

I'm not sure it's malware. It could just be that some of the updates have caused the computer to boot incorrectly.

Thanks for your help...

The easiest and most reliable way to get the data off of it is to boot the computer with a Linux DVD, running Linux entirely from the DVD. (In this mode, it doesn't install anything on the computer.) Once you have done that, you should be able to see your hard drive and the contents of it. Insert a flash drive or external hard drive, and then copy whatever you want from the hard drive to the flash drive.

Probably the easiest Linux to deal with for running it from the DVD is Linux Mint. Go to the following web site:

https://linuxmint.com/download.php

Download the xfce 32-bit version. Then run it to create a Linux DVD. Then reboot the computer with the Linux DVD in the drive.

When you insert the flash drive, a file explorer window will open. Click File then New Window to open a second file explorer window. Then you can copy from one window to the other.