Windows 7 booting into Windows.old folder, black screen with cursor

[rrrrramos]

I'm experiencing an issue I've been reading on here, all of the solutions thus far haven't worked for me yet though. My computer is booting up and after getting past the login screen, it will boot to a black screen with the cursor. Ctl+Alt+Del will let me bring up the task manager, and I can run explorer from there, but no programs or the like are available to run or anything of the sort. I know how I got here; I accidentally set my secondary hard drive (blank drive, just sort of for overflow once needed) as the Primary Drive. Upon booting, I was given the BOOTMANAGER is damaged screen and went through getting that all taken care of, resetting the MBR and such via the Repair/Recovery Console on the Install disc. That brings me to where I am now, logging in to a black screen with only the cursor. Upon booting into safe mode, I noticed that it was loading all my info from my "Windows.old" folder from when I upgraded to Win 7. I assume that when I set my OS for the recovery console, it used the OS found in Windows.old as opposed to the one I had been using before. I'm currently stuck trying to get this thing fixed any way possible. I assume I can install a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate on my secondary hard drive, and troubleshoot from there, or just use that as my boot drive, but if I can avoid that I would like to. Any help is appreciated, thank you!

 

[unifex]

Hi rrrrramos, and welcome!

when you boot up your machine, you can press a F key (typically F12, but consult your motherboard manual to be sure) to bring up the menu where you can choose the device from which the system should be loaded. This way you can avoid the bootloader on your blank drive. If this works, then you can further troubleshoot from within Windows.

If this does not work, then I would suggest disconnecting the blank drive altogether after which you can run the repair install on your system.

Also, you can use Partition Magic (just make a bootable disk with it on someone elses computer) to change properties of your drives.

Hope this helps.

 

[rrrrramos]

Thanks, the issue isn't with the device that the OS is booting up from, I already disconnected the blank drive and have just the one main drive connected right now. The issue is that I must have directed it to use the previous Windows install (the one in my Windows.old folder) as the Current OS and that is causing it to go blank and not allowing me access to anything including programs, network etc.. I have to get the desktop to show by starting the Task Manager and running explorer.exe.

 

[rrrrramos]

Basically, I need to find out how to get my OS to boot from the Windows folder, not the Windows.old folder that it seems to be booting from now. Thanks again!

 

[karlsnooks]

ramos,
go to msconfig.exe
choose the Boot tab
Is more than one OS listed there? If yes, then select the other one.
OK your way out and reboot.

 

[rrrrramos]

Thanks. No, the only one listed is as follows:
Windows 7 Ultimate (C:\Windows.old\Windows) : Current OS; Default OS

 

[rrrrramos]

If it helps, I originally pointed it to the correct disk by using the method found here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installa...u-doesnt-see-operating-system.html#post767041

 

[karlsnooks]

can you get us a diskmanagement map?

HOW TO POST A SNAPSHOT OF DISK MANAGEMENT DISPLAY
Run disk management:
WIN | type DISKMGMT.MSC | ENTER
WIN=key with Microsoft logo on top.


Maximize the output of Disk Management:
ALT-Spacebar key combo | X key (selects Maximize) |
Drag the field separators (such as between Status and Capacity) to show entire field.


Make a snapshot:
WIN | type SNIPPING | ENTER | New
Drag the cursor around the area you want to snip.
File | Save as | select save location and name | Save


Post the snapshot:
Post a File or Screenshot in Seven Forums

====================================

 

[rrrrramos]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

 

[Sir George]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

Try using Visual BCD Editor - Windows 7/Vista tool, available from;

http://www.boyans.net/

There is a tab on the bottom row to edit the Boot Menu. I haven't used this in a long time, so don't remember all the particulars.

HTH

 

[rrrrramos]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

Try using Visual BCD Editor - Windows 7/Vista tool, available from;

http://www.boyans.net/

There is a tab on the bottom row to edit the Boot Menu. I haven't used this in a long time, so don't remember all the particulars.

HTH

Thanks, I'll check it out. But how can I use that if I can't get anything to run?

 

[Sir George]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

Try using Visual BCD Editor - Windows 7/Vista tool, available from;

http://www.boyans.net/

There is a tab on the bottom row to edit the Boot Menu. I haven't used this in a long time, so don't remember all the particulars.

HTH

Thanks, I'll check it out. But how can I use that if I can't get anything to run?

OK, I am confused, how did you get to MSConfig?

 

[rrrrramos]

Try using Visual BCD Editor - Windows 7/Vista tool, available from;

http://www.boyans.net/

There is a tab on the bottom row to edit the Boot Menu. I haven't used this in a long time, so don't remember all the particulars.

HTH

Thanks, I'll check it out. But how can I use that if I can't get anything to run?

OK, I am confused, how did you get to MSConfig?

After it loads to a blank screen, I open the task manager and use the "Run" command from there. So far I'm able to get it to load explorer.exe, diskmgmt.msc and msconfig.exe. I can't access the main drive or anything like that, I've got to execute it all from the Run command.

 

[Sir George]

Thanks, I'll check it out. But how can I use that if I can't get anything to run?

OK, I am confused, how did you get to MSConfig?

After it loads to a blank screen, I open the task manager and use the "Run" command from there. So far I'm able to get it to load explorer.exe, diskmgmt.msc and msconfig.exe. I can't access the main drive or anything like that, I've got to execute it all from the Run command.

Can you still view a DVD disk from the "Run" command? If so, use a working computer to download and then run it from there. I haven't encounterd your exact situation before, so all this is second guessing what you will be able to accomplish.

 

[rrrrramos]

I loaded it to a flash drive, I'm able to run the program via a command prompt, but it won't let me install. The popup reads as follows:
"The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance."

 

[rrrrramos]

If there is a command line way to set the boot loader path to "\Windows\system32\winload.exe" rather than the "\Windows.old\Windows\system32\winload.exe" that it's set to right now, I'm able to do it that way. I'm pretty sure THAT right there is the big problem.

 

[Sir George]

I loaded it to a flash drive, I'm able to run the program via a command prompt, but it won't let me install. The popup reads as follows:
"The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance."

Sorry, it looks like this ain't gonna work. There is a tool that will run in a pure DOS environment that should work. It's from Terabyteunlimited and the program is "BooitIt Bare Metal". It is a pretty sophisticated partition management tool and has a fully functional 30 trial. You can download it from;

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-bare-metal.htm

You will need to download to a working computer, then create a boot disk and have your BIOS set to boot from either a DVD or Thumb drive.

Since I have no idea of your computer skills, I will recommend caution when using this software; you can definitely cause more harm if used incorrectly. There are tutorials on the site which will provide some idea of how it works.

 

[writhziden]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

Why do you have a System Reserved partition that has a drive letter and is not active? Was this intentional?

Before following the advice for the 30 day trial partition software, I would recommend reading through http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html

I have asked the author of that tutorial to take a look at this thread, as well.

 

[rrrrramos]

I realize this isn't the ideal way to get the screenshot up here, but snipping wouldn't work and if it did I'd have no way to go about getting it off the computer anyways, as it's not letting me access anything, even trying to explore the drive.

Why do you have a System Reserved partition that has a drive letter and is not active? Was this intentional?

Before following the advice for the 30 day trial partition software, I would recommend reading through http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html

I have asked the author of that tutorial to take a look at this thread, as well.

I'm using a laptop hard drive as the main drive for this computer. That is how it was formatted when it was in the laptop, I've made no changes to it since. I've since got the boot loader set up to read Windows from the correct folder, now I'm experiencing an issue where it will load up, then shut the screen off before it logs on...

 

[boyans]

Can you start a command prompt with admin rights ?
If yes create a complete BCD dump:
bcdedit /enum all /v >bcd_full.txt

and attach to your next post.

Shifting W7 loader to boot from any directory is done over the path element of the loader. But let's see what is there in the BCD first.