Win 7 cannot start, restore or repair possible damage to MBR

[theog]

figured I'd be safe if I made a 64bit recovery myself .... appears I was wrong !

Toshiba are doing some odd installs.

Why can you not use the 64bit Recovery diisks?

How to use Toshiba Recovery.
How to use the Toshiba HDD Recovery Utility

 

[kilkennycat]

well I can of course but when this first happened it appeared that a virus had merely 'deleted' the Mbr and it might be fixable by simply replacing that and not having to do a complete fresh install.

really I was hoping to do it without losing all the personal data on my c:

I havent backed it up since last week and there are a number of projects on there I really need.

I can use dos prompt to recover them to my ex HDD.

Was really just hoping wouldnt come to that

 

[SIW2]

Not very clear what the issue is here.

When startup repair said it was unable to repair - did you scroll down to see the reason ?

It might say there is a possible corrupted registry.

If so - you should be able to replace it by copying the hives from the backup in windows\system32\config\regback

to

windows\system32\config - just overwrite the existing hives in the config folder.

The hives are called Default, Sam,Security,Software,System

Have a look and make sure the backup hives are not 0kb first.

You might find it easier to use notepad:

at cmd type notepad

when notepad pops up, select FILE>SAVE then choose ALL FILES instead of .txt files in notepad dropdown box.

You can navigate about with that.

Open 2 instances of notepad to make copying easier.



nb - if that doesn't work for you , what o/s are you using right now to post up here?

 

[kilkennycat]

Hi SIW,

Most of the diagnostics return no errors then right down the bottom it says:

root cause found

unspecified changes to the system configuraion might have caused the problem,
result : Failed. Error Code = 0x490

I'm using my sons laptop to post atm.

I also have now managed to get acess to my files using ubuntu on a usb stick.
I can see the reg files your referring to you but not sure how I can copy those accross using ubuntu

 

[aem]

Well this is going on long enough kilkennycat. Lets do a reinstall, and this time do a system repair disk, PLUS a full system image.

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Backup and Restore

 

[SIW2]

Yes, that's registry corruption.

See if you can replace the hives the way I posted earlier.

I do it all the time.

I don't know much about Ubuntu - but I believe you can use it to copy Windows files from one place to another.

You want to copy them from system32\config\regback to system32\config

I don't know the precise mechanism for that with Ubuntu -is there some kind of Copy on context menu or something similar?

 

[aem]

For Registry issues, i use RegistryFix.

 

[kilkennycat]

thanks for all the help guys, no matter what I try It looks like the os is screwed.

I used ubuntu to restore ll the backed up registry files

I tried diskpart to identify and make sure the correct drive was active
used bootrec to do all the neccessary there but still it returns with

Total identified windows installations: 0 The operation completed successfully.


so I hold my hands up and admit defeat. Luckily the Toshiba HDD recovery will restore to the 64bit fingers crossed I won't have to downgrade to the 32bit on the disk provided !

 

[aem]

A 32bit reinstallation CD will get it back to 32Bit which i assume was the oem OS, not 64bit, if it's successful that is.

 

[kilkennycat]

The Laptop has never had 32bit on it !

which is why Im baffled by toshiba supplying the 32bit installation disk !

The laptop was preloaded with 64bit and I can confirm that the HDD recovery that came on the 2nd partition also restored to factory settings of 64bit ..

 

[aem]

The 32bit CD might have been shipped by mistake which can happen. Did you get the laptop with upgrade option to 64bit, assuming it would have 32bit as standard?

Anyway so how is the recovery going?

 

[kilkennycat]

No not a mistake ..... and a money spinner on their part Just found the piece of paper that came with all the other manuals

" Thank you for purchasing a state-of-the-art Toshiba Computer ! Please note that your computer is pre-installed with 64-bit version of Windows 7 and a backup copy of the system is stored on your hard disk drive as a recovery image too. In addition to this, your computer comes with a 32-bit windows 7 DVD-ROM that alows you to easily install this operating system on your own

if you paln to use the 64-bit version at a later stage again, please create a recovery medium prior to installing 32-bit windows 7.

if you do not create the 64-bit recovery medium, you will not be able to use the operating system that was delivered with your computer. Ordering a windows 7 64-bit recovery medium is NOT FREE of charge !!!





I'd also point out that I am now 100% sure of what cuased all the problems in the first place.

My PC was infected with Backdoor.Tidserv and I used Symantecs removal tool .... s

NEVER AGAIN !

and curious that it got past their own Symantec end point protection software in the first place !!

PS - System restored now

 

[aem]

After reading that info, i'm thinking you ordered the 64bit OS with the system however Toshiba used the stock which it originally had 32bit OS for. So when they said you could use the 32Bit DVD to reinstall the OS this is oem. Whereas the 64bit is not oem rather what you have ordered and which they have installed on top of the 32Bit.

Glad you have gotten to the end of all this

 

[kilkennycat]

thank you !

and learned a very valuable lesson ... even 'trusted' software can't be trusted !


Now to try to get rid of all this bloatware without messing it all up again !

 

[theog]

No not a mistake

Toshiba ship some models with 64bit installed & 32bit Recovery disks.
Toshiba L450/ L450D is one.

 

[kilkennycat]

that's the very one I have !

 

[Layback Bear]

kilkennycat I'm glad you computer is up and running. Great job to all those that helped. Just to be sure what you have press the Windows Flag and the Pause keys. 32 or 64.
If it was my computer I would remove Norton and install MSE.

 

[theog]

that's the very one I have !

I can see down Phone lines.


I personally would stay with Norton.

 

[kilkennycat]

that's the very one I have !

I can see down Phone lines.

.

Now that is a useful Talent !

 

[aem]

Forget Norton and MSE, use AVG.