Repair Install Fails, Then Reverts - "The upgrade was not successful."

[thadius856]

Repair Install Fails, Then Reverts - "The upgrade was not successful."

Posted this on other websites without much luck. Hopefully there's some hope posting here.

As titled, I'm trying to do a repair install of Windows 7. Current install and license are from Win 7 Family Pack (Home Prem x64). Installed SP1 since then. Attempting to perform a repair install from the Home Prem x64 TechNet ISO (X17-24209.iso), burned to a flash drive. Everything works great, up until it fails nearing the end of the upgrade and then rolls back.

It gets through several reboots, all the way up to the 4th phase, "Installing Features and Updates" before giving up. It then gives the message "The upgrade was not successful. Your previous version of Windows is being restored. Do not restart your computer during this time." Thankfully, it successfully restores, boots back up, and then gives a bubble to that effect.

Another site suggested it could be Windows Update failing. I installed a patch to ensure it was functioning. So I doubt it's Windows Update.

Perhaps these logs help:

C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Panther\setuperr.log:
setuperr.log - Pastebin.com

C:\$UPGRADE.~OS\OfflineUpgradeStore\File\C$\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log:
WindowsUpdate.log - Pastebin.com

Any ideas?

 

[Layback Bear]

I'm not repair and install expert but when I do one this is what I use and it works. Read through this it should help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[thadius856]

I'm not repair and install expert but when I do one this is what I use and it works. Read through this it should help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

I've read this link a couple times before and can confirm that I'm doing exactly what it says to do.

The problem I'm having occurs towards the end of Step 13.

And yep, I did check the list of can/cannot items. This is definitely listed as a can:

You can use a retail Windows 7 SP1 installation disc (ex: Technet (available), MSDN (available), or retail (when available)) to do a repair install with on a currently installed Windows 7 SP1.

 

[Layback Bear]

Okay this has happened to me at the end of 13. I don't know if this will help or not. Do at your own risk.
Remove the DVD and restart the computer and leave it alone. What it did for me (one time) was finish the repair install slowly as I watched.
I don't know the reason for this. My guess is that everything that was needed off the DVD was loaded into the hard drive and it just didn't reboot as it should of.

 

[thadius856]

Rebooted. It didn't resume. Just booted straight up. Fast, but no repair.

Anybody else got ideas?

 

[Layback Bear]

Okay I have went back to the Ranch and requested help. Hang in there.

 

[Britton30]

You might try your original DVD install disk. It may mean going back through the whole update stuff though.

Why do you want a repair?

 

[Anak]

Hi thadius856, can you post a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html, after looking at your thread I remembered other members having problems and the reason was where their boot partition was located.

I then checked your system specs (by-the-way-thanks for filling them out!) and I see under Hard Drives you list two drives one HDD, and one SSD, might be all you need to do is find out where your boot partition is and disconnect the other one while you're doing the repair, then hook the one you dis-connected back up.

There is one other possibility, are you running a raid setup? I didn't find too much on it, but this jogged my memory on raid's, It's an old post, but may apply, see two answers below thread starter: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/Windows7 completes install, then says it will not take, then rolls back

 

[NoelDP]

Please follow the Windows Update Posting Instructions and post the requested data

 

[thadius856]

You might try your original DVD install disk. It may mean going back through the whole update stuff though.

Why do you want a repair?

I did try the original disk. Since I have SP1 installed and it's an original release ISO, it won't work. It fails, saying that "The version installed is newer than the disk" or somesuch. That's why I grabbed an SP1 ISO.
As for the why -- this install is an upgrade from a Vista install which I've been carrying forward since shortly after Vista released. Yep, it's that old. I maintain my personal machine well. It's on its 4th set of hardware now, and towards the end of the 3rd set of hardware, motherboard capacitors started bulging and leaking faster than I could re-solder fresh ones on, causing frequent blue screens. I'm sure those unexpected poweroffs affected the OS integrity negatively, so I'd like to repair before it becomes unstable.

Besides, I'm an IT professional, so I'd like to get an image of a freshly repaired baseline and keep a change log so I can re-image monthly or quarterly, then simply re-apply any changes in the change log. It's just good management.

Hi thadius856, can you post a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html, after looking at your thread I remembered other members having problems and the reason was where their boot partition was located.

</p>
Sure. Will do as soon as I get home.

I then checked your system specs (by-the-way-thanks for filling them out!) and I see under Hard Drives you list two drives one HDD, and one SSD, might be all you need to do is find out where your boot partition is and disconnect the other one while you're doing the repair, then hook the one you dis-connected back up.

The SSD has the boot partition, and the HDD shouldn't, as it's a freshly formatted disk. Again, I'll confirm when I get home.

There is one other possibility, are you running a raid setup? I didn't find too much on it, but this jogged my memory on raid's, It's an old post, but may apply, see two answers below thread starter: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/Windows7 completes install, then says it will not take, then rolls back

No RAID. I used to run Raid 1+0 with 1 tb disks. But now that SSDs have dropped to a reasonable price, I find I get the same performance and fault protection using an SSD for the OS drive, a large HDD for file storage, and weekly images followed by weekly updates to my RAID 1 NAS. Plus a lot less case heat to mitigate.

 

[thadius856]

Please follow the Windows Update Posting Instructions and post the requested data

I'm not having problems with Windows Update. Though I bet you probably gathered as much and it'll help somehow, so I'll post this too when I get home.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Britton30]

This may have some helpful info. Non-destructive reinstall of Windows 7 | www.winhelp.us

To get a really good basline image, this method, a fresh install, is a good way.
http://www.sevenforums.com/installa...ling-setting-up-windows-pc-7.html#post2294096

 

[Layback Bear]

Thank you all for coming to help thadius856.
thadius856 we will all be waiting for your replies.

 

[gregrocker]

If there's never been a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html on the PC I would do one now rather than go through possibly more trouble doing a Repair Install on a Vista Upgrade to Win7 which will never perform anywhere near as good as Clean Installed Win7.

Stick with the tools and methods same as http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164 and you will get and keep a perfect install.

 

[thadius856]

Hi thadius856, can you post a http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

Here ya go:



Explained (from the top down):

Disk 0 (400 gb) - an old drive I plugged in tonight to bcwipe before I toss degauss and shred at work
Disk 1 (256 gb) - Samsung 840 Pro 256gb SSD (OS drive)
Disk 2 (3 tb) - Seagate 3 tb HDD. General Storage (Z daily incremental backups (Y, monthly full image (X
Disk 3 (4 gb) - 4 gb Cruzer flash drive with the Win 7 Home Prem SP1 x64 TechNet ISO (bootable)
CD-ROM 0 - DVD+/-RW (empty)
CD-ROM 1 - DVD+/-RW (Win 7 Home Prem x64 SP1 Technet ISO (burned to DVD)

 

[thadius856]

Please follow the Windows Update Posting Instructions and post the requested data

1. System Update Readiness Tool (SURT)

SURT asked if I wanted to install KB947821. I told it to do so. It completed successfully.

2. SFC Scan

1st time found quite a few errors and corrected. (attached: CBS.zip)

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Thadius>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

2nd time found nothing. I'll consider that a success.

C:\Users\Thadius>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

3. Windows Update Error Codes

Not experiencing any Windows Update problems, so not receiving any errors. Patches install just fine.


4. Log Collection

Attached.

 

[thadius856]

This may have some helpful info. Non-destructive reinstall of Windows 7 | www.winhelp.us

To get a really good basline image, this method, a fresh install, is a good way.
http://www.sevenforums.com/installa...ling-setting-up-windows-pc-7.html#post2294096

I appreciate the advice to start with a clean image, but setting it all back up to my liking is a hassle I won't have time for in the near future. Work is taking up all my time. Maybe once I accrue some more leave.

As for the link, that non-destructive install is exactly what I'm attempting to do. Except without the unnecessary step of emulating as Vista SP2.

 

[thadius856]

Going to head to bed now. Very tired and have to be up early.

Launching upgrade attempt #4 now. It should only take an hour or so to know if it was successful or not, but I hope to be saw logs by then.

Will post back in the early morning.

 

[NoelDP]

The WU instructions are a convenient method of gathering information which relates to many other things as well - please post the data.

 

[NoelDP]

- sorry - I didn't see that you'd posted the CBS.log file, but we still have no CheckSUR report, and no back data. The first run of SFC fixed 72 file problems, the majority of which were graphics (.ico .bmp .png). Some however, were xml files, and there was one .dll file where the hard link was broken - VGX.dll

I can't honestly see any of those causing your problem with a repair install, so the extra data from the CheckSUR will be important.