Corrupt partition, can't boot, Startup Repair loop, tried chkdsk

[writhziden]

Whichever Windows partion you think is the correct one, push the right arrow key until you get a P for primary partition. Make the partition marked [Boot] a primary partition P as well with the right arrow key. Make the [System Reserved] partition a boot * partition by pressing the right arrow key until an * shows up.

Hit enter, then select write, and press Y, then write the partition table and reboot.

 

[MMKH]

Whichever Windows partion you think is the correct one, push the right arrow key until you get a P for primary partition. Make the partition marked [Boot] a primary partition P as well with the right arrow key. Make the [System Reserved] partition a boot * partition by pressing the right arrow key until an * shows up.

Hit enter, then select write, and press Y, then write the partition table and reboot.

I am going to mark the 300 GB one as P since I know that's the one with Windows on it, and says structure ok. System reserved is also okay with * on it. However, when I mark the "Boot" one anything other than D, it says the structure is "bad", and the other two don't highlight in green anymore.

When I press "P" to list files under [Boot], there is just some dr-xr-xr-x lines with a folder called "System volume information", that has 2 more similar lines.

Also, if I mark the first partition as P but leave the 2nd one as D, will that erase everything on it? Actually it says its "ok" if I mark both the 1st and 2nd partitions with P BTW.

And if I reboot, am I to return to Parted Magic UBCD from CD or am I to boot off the HDD into Windows?

 

[writhziden]

Whichever Windows partion you think is the correct one, push the right arrow key until you get a P for primary partition. Make the partition marked [Boot] a primary partition P as well with the right arrow key. Make the [System Reserved] partition a boot * partition by pressing the right arrow key until an * shows up.

Hit enter, then select write, and press Y, then write the partition table and reboot.

I am going to mark the 300 GB one as P since I know that's the one with Windows on it, and says structure ok. System reserved is also okay with * on it. However, when I mark the "Boot" one anything other than D, it says the structure is "bad".

Also, if I mark the first partition as P but leave the 2nd one as D, will that erase everything on it?

And if I reboot, am I to return to Parted Magic UBCD from CD or am I to boot off the HDD into Windows?

If you mark the first as P, the D partition will be deleted, which is why I suggested making sure you knew which one was the most recent based on file structure. If the [Boot] partition cannot be retrieved, leave it. I do not think it is important, anyway. The most important are the [System Reserved] for booting into Windows and the Windows partition for your operating system and files. If the Windows partition is saying it is OK, then leave that as P and [System Reserved] as *. Then write it and reboot into Windows.

You shouldn't need to boot into Parted Magic again if you can get Windows to start. Good luck!

 

[writhziden]

When I press "P" to list files under [Boot], there is just some dr-xr-xr-x lines with a folder called "System volume information", that has 2 more similar lines.

Also, if I mark the first partition as P but leave the 2nd one as D, will that erase everything on it? Actually it says its "ok" if I mark both the 1st and 2nd partitions with P BTW.

The 1st partition is your original boot partition. The second appears to be the moved boot partition. I recommend not marking the second partition at all (leave it D) as that is probably what started your issues.

As for the [Boot] drive, "System Volume Information" is where files are stored related to your system and how programs and Windows is configured, and there are also typically backup files (restore points, registry backups, etc.). I wouldn't worry about losing that information as it should still be within your partition containing Windows, as well.

 

[MMKH]

Whichever Windows partion you think is the correct one, push the right arrow key until you get a P for primary partition. Make the partition marked [Boot] a primary partition P as well with the right arrow key. Make the [System Reserved] partition a boot * partition by pressing the right arrow key until an * shows up.

Hit enter, then select write, and press Y, then write the partition table and reboot.

I am going to mark the 300 GB one as P since I know that's the one with Windows on it, and says structure ok. System reserved is also okay with * on it. However, when I mark the "Boot" one anything other than D, it says the structure is "bad".

Also, if I mark the first partition as P but leave the 2nd one as D, will that erase everything on it?

And if I reboot, am I to return to Parted Magic UBCD from CD or am I to boot off the HDD into Windows?

If you mark the first as P, the D partition will be deleted, which is why I suggested making sure you knew which one was the most recent based on file structure. If the [Boot] partition cannot be retrieved, leave it. I do not think it is important, anyway. The most important are the [System Reserved] for booting into Windows and the Windows partition for your operating system and files. If the Windows partition is saying it is OK, then leave that as P and [System Reserved] as *. Then write it and reboot into Windows.

You shouldn't need to boot into Parted Magic again if you can get Windows to start. Good luck!

Okay I did that and selected write, hit "Y" and nothing really happened. I then quit the program and rebooted. I tried booting off the HDD by pressing F8 and selecting HDD as priority for booting but I still get the usual startup repair option, or run Windows normally option, but when I try, it flashes a black then blue screen and restarts immediately, which has happened to me for the past few days.

I will do another deeper search and try selecting the "backup" one that had the full 600 GB and try that instead. It may take a while.

EDIT: When you say 1st partition, does that mean the system reserved one at 100 mb for essential Windows recovery files, or do you mean the one that is 300 GB with Windows? Sometimes I forget the reserved one and just think there are 2 partitions on my drive.

 

[writhziden]

I am going to mark the 300 GB one as P since I know that's the one with Windows on it, and says structure ok. System reserved is also okay with * on it. However, when I mark the "Boot" one anything other than D, it says the structure is "bad".

Also, if I mark the first partition as P but leave the 2nd one as D, will that erase everything on it?

And if I reboot, am I to return to Parted Magic UBCD from CD or am I to boot off the HDD into Windows?

If you mark the first as P, the D partition will be deleted, which is why I suggested making sure you knew which one was the most recent based on file structure. If the [Boot] partition cannot be retrieved, leave it. I do not think it is important, anyway. The most important are the [System Reserved] for booting into Windows and the Windows partition for your operating system and files. If the Windows partition is saying it is OK, then leave that as P and [System Reserved] as *. Then write it and reboot into Windows.

You shouldn't need to boot into Parted Magic again if you can get Windows to start. Good luck!

Okay I did that and selected write, hit "Y" and nothing really happened. I then quit the program and rebooted. I tried booting off the HDD by pressing F8 and selecting HDD as priority for booting but I still get the usual startup repair option, or run Windows normally option, but when I try, it flashes a black then blue screen and restarts immediately, which has happened to me for the past few days.

I will do another deeper search and try selecting the "backup" one that had the full 600 GB and try that instead. It may take a while.

EDIT: When you say 1st partition, does that mean the system reserved one at 100 mb for essential Windows recovery files, or do you mean the one that is 300 GB with Windows? Sometimes I forget the reserved one and just think there are 2 partitions on my drive.

I was reading down the list of partitions that showed up in your Testdisk picture. The first one is [System Reserved] and is the boot partition for starting Windows. The second appears to be a moved version of the boot partition. The third and fourth you found to have the Windows file system on them. What is in the last partition? Is that the second half of the drive split in half?

Edit: Nevermind, you already said what the last partition was. It was the second half. Thanks.

 

[writhziden]

Today I tried booting from the install DVD, using Recovery Environment to run cmd prompt, then "chkdsk /f /r" (based on some online tutorials I found) , but it would take at least 2 hours each time, and mostly says "file record segment is unreadable" around 180000 all the way up to around 300000+. It didn't say whether anything was fixed, it just deleted a lot of random files near the end.

I also have been meaning to ask. When you say you ran "chkdsk /f /r", do you mean you ran chkdsk /f and then chkdsk /r, or tried both at once? I believe this runs /r only, which implies /f, so it shouldn't matter. Just want to make sure it tried to go through all 5 steps when you ran this; was that the case?

 

[MMKH]

Yeah, the last one is the 2nd half of the drive, which I made when I set it up for the first time. I intended for that to be a temporary storage or backup partition. Most of the space taken up in that is a 150 GB Windows image which it automatically made back in April (kept filling up the partition with new or updated images of my main Windows partition until I manually stopped it). I don't use it much and I have copied the entire image through Ubuntu DVD boot on my secondary storage drive just in case I can try to re-image it.

Today I tried booting from the install DVD, using Recovery Environment to run cmd prompt, then "chkdsk /f /r" (based on some online tutorials I found) , but it would take at least 2 hours each time, and mostly says "file record segment is unreadable" around 180000 all the way up to around 300000+. It didn't say whether anything was fixed, it just deleted a lot of random files near the end.

I also have been meaning to ask. When you say you ran "chkdsk /f /r", do you mean you ran chkdsk /f and then chkdsk /r, or tried both at once? I believe this runs /r only, which implies /f, so it shouldn't matter. Just want to make sure it tried to go through all 5 steps when you ran this; was that the case?

Yes, I let it run for a few hours each time until it stopped suddenly after being about 57% completed, said something with "50" at the end. I heard another forum helper say that I should not run that anymore if the drive is really that corrupted.

 

[writhziden]

Do you have access to the Windows directory? There is a solution to your problem if you do. I assumed you did not since you could not open D:, but now I realize I never asked and thought it might be a good idea to do so.

 

[MMKH]

Do you have access to the Windows directory? There is a solution to your problem if you do.

I don't, both Windows RE and Sweeper couldn't detect or let me access whether browsing when I selected load drivers or just trying in cmd to open the drive letter. Always something about being corrupted or unreadable.

 

[writhziden]

Do you have access to the Windows directory? There is a solution to your problem if you do.

I don't, both Windows RE and Sweeper couldn't detect or let me access whether browsing when I selected load drivers or just trying in cmd to open the drive letter. Always something about being corrupted or unreadable.

Can you still run chkdsk /r on d:?

 

[MMKH]

Do you have access to the Windows directory? There is a solution to your problem if you do.

I don't, both Windows RE and Sweeper couldn't detect or let me access whether browsing when I selected load drivers or just trying in cmd to open the drive letter. Always something about being corrupted or unreadable.

Can you still run chkdsk /r on d:?

Yeah, I was able to do that yesterday.

 

[writhziden]

Okay, so it was the d: drive that was having issues during the recovery process of chkdsk. I figured as much, but wanted to make sure. When you opened the drive using the Linux DVD, did it show up as NTFS?

My theory is that Windows is seeing the drive as RAW, which should have been fixed by TestDisk, but apparently was not. There was one method I stumbled across that might fix the problem, but I will need to do some further research. I'll do that while you're trying the backup sectors partition option.

 

[MMKH]

Okay, so it was the d: drive that was having issues during the recovery process of chkdsk. I figured as much, but wanted to make sure. When you opened the drive using the Linux DVD, did it show up as NTFS?

My theory is that Windows is seeing the drive as RAW, which should have been fixed by TestDisk, but apparently was not. There was one method I stumbled across that might fix the problem, but I will need to do some further research. I'll do that while you're trying the backup sectors partition option.

Yeah, it was NTFS in Ubuntu.

EDIT: BTW, I remember that the time I was using the PC before it stopped booting properly, was when I turned on my external WD Mybook drive. I leave it connected to power and USB but don't usually unlock it for use because I had problems with it acting extremely slow in the past. So I did that time just to delete some stuff to free space., then safely removed and unplugged it. The next time I booted, it failed and at first I thought it was because BIOS was trying to boot from my secondary drive, which didn't have Windows. However I corrected the order and it still didn't really help me. But the drive letters changed a few times when I unplugged and replugged drives so I think today the drive letter is E:

 

[writhziden]

Okay, so it was the d: drive that was having issues during the recovery process of chkdsk. I figured as much, but wanted to make sure. When you opened the drive using the Linux DVD, did it show up as NTFS?

My theory is that Windows is seeing the drive as RAW, which should have been fixed by TestDisk, but apparently was not. There was one method I stumbled across that might fix the problem, but I will need to do some further research. I'll do that while you're trying the backup sectors partition option.

I was mistaken. Testdisk will not fix a RAW file system as Testdisk only fixes partition errors. You may as well stop the Testdisk scan. I'm trying to find a viable solution...

 

[writhziden]

See post #14. Also, make sure you are very careful with spelling and carry out the steps exactly as written. Do not proceed to the following step until you know the previous step actually did something.

 

[MMKH]

Okay I just tried the TestDisk thing this time setting the "backup" one at 600 GB as Primary. It said:

Boot sector
Status: OK

Backup Boot sector
Status: OK

Sectors are not identical.

A valid NTFS boot sector must be present in order to access any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

 

[writhziden]

A better outline of the above is posted in: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

 

[writhziden]

Okay I just tried the TestDisk thing this time setting the "backup" one at 600 GB as Primary. It said:

Boot sector
Status: OK

Backup Boot sector
Status: OK

Sectors are not identical.

A valid NTFS boot sector must be present in order to access any data; even if the partition is not bootable.

My guess is that the backup sector is your entire drive, so it would overwrite the boot partition, hence the error you receive. Leave your partition table intact and go through the tutorial I just posted. I am thinking you do not have a partition issue but a file system issue.

 

[MMKH]

A better outline of the above is posted in: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

I tried something like this at first but it didn't work. However I will follow the steps exactly anyway.

Under System Recovery options, it still shows Windows 7 with a Partition Size as "0 mb", location E: local disk.

I followed the steps until diskpart> list volume. It turns out that the E: drive is indeed "RAW", and is 558 GB (total size of drive). The other secondary drive shows the letters of the partitions to be D: and F:, both of which are NTFS. Fortunately, everything says Status is healthy.

Okay I finished the steps, and it says "successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode. (under a line that said C: (\\?\Volume...)) and "successfully updated disk bootcode under "device\harddisk". Then "Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes". Going to try to restart and boot now.