Solved Win 7 update caused error, how to boot Advent laptop in safe mode?

[tonyuk123]

Hi,
It's actually my sons laptop that i have a problem with, it's an Advent Roma 3001
It apparently happened when windows said it needed a restart to install updates.
i have tried running repairs on it from the recovery partition, also from a win7 repair disk
nothing seems to actually complete.
Originally the hard drive had a few minor errors that it has corrected.
but windows boots to the logo screen then flashes a blue screen of death so fast you cannot read it then restarts.
I have tried going into the command line, where more functions seem to work
But i was trying to run sfc /scannow
but it returns that a repair is awaiting restart, but because the laptop wont boot it wont complete that!
also advent decided that you obviously don't need to be able to get to safe mode
Is there a way to force a safe mode boot from the command line?
Or any other ideas?

 

[Ztruker]

See here: How To Start Windows 7 in Safe Mode

 

[tonyuk123]

Thamks, but i cannot get safe mode from the advanced boot menu, thats the problem.
Advent in there wisdom have chosen to omit it in the option, you get start windows normally or run windows repair
which i why i was asking if there is a way to force a safe mode boot from the commandline
after all if you can run a script that runs safe mode, if you know the commands you should be able to make it do the same from command line

 

[Ztruker]

See here starting with Step 3. How To Force Windows To Restart in Safe Mode

 

[tonyuk123]

cool that was good, well apart from it wont start windows in safe mode either!

let me recap, if i do sfc /scannow or sfc /verifyonly
it returns 'There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart windows and run sfc again'
problem is and was anyway, that windows wont start !
i have tried running from recovery partition, and from recovery disk (CD) but neither of these will do the repair (presumably because of the same reason i get from the command line)
Any ideas what i can try next?

 

[Kaktussoft]

cool that was good, well apart from it wont start windows in safe mode either!

let me recap, if i do sfc /scannow or sfc /verifyonly
it returns 'There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart windows and run sfc again'
problem is and was anyway, that windows wont start !
i have tried running from recovery partition, and from recovery disk (CD) but neither of these will do the repair (presumably because of the same reason i get from the command line)
Any ideas what i can try next?

Did you do a factory restore from CD/DVD? Or is your original win7 still installed (but not booting)?

 

[tonyuk123]

the original install still exists, just wont boot, normally or in safe mode

 

[Kaktussoft]

but windows boots to the logo screen then flashes a blue screen of death so fast you cannot read it then restarts.
=>
Boot to http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/666-advanced-boot-options.html then select "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure". What BSOD (blues screen) stop code do you get on normal boot afterwards?

How did problems start? By installing a bad update? If so... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html and go back in time to before problems started.

Post results

 

[tonyuk123]

well i didn't get the chance to try that, as it decided not to boot at all except in recovery. In which none of the tools would complete, either hanging after about 30 mins or telling me it had a repair waiting to complete, restart. which was no help as it wouldn't restart
Eventually use Ubuntu install disk to run full system from cd
Checked partitions, for some reason recovery partition had become boot drive ! so i put that back to windows partition. This changed things, but still no boot
Used a linux tool to scan and fix NTFS drive, which only found some corrupt parts withing one user profile, and that was in a camera picture folder.
Really not sure why that would stop windows booting but ho hum !
Anyway all up and running now thanks to Linux !
Thanks for your help, at least i learnt how to force a safe mode and get extra options from the boot if i need to

 

[Kaktussoft]

repair waiting to complete=>Was that from the sfc/scannow command? If so you did sfc the recovery environment.... NOT the win7 itself!

Checked partitions, for some reason recovery partition had become boot drive ! so i put that back to windows partition. This changed things, but still no boot=>Most likely recovery partition was the ACTIVE partition all the time. Not the cause of the problem. Bootmgr and bootmenu were fine.

Which tool was hanging after about 30 mins? How do you know it was hanging? I think it was "startup repair". One of its steps is chkdsk so checking the disk... can take a long time.

 

[tonyuk123]

well with the sfc /scannow i guess i could have been
but then surely it would have just completed and been happy?

chkdsk /f /r (from command line) was hanging after about 30 minutes
it was doing a lot of disk activity for first 30 mins, as you might expect, then nothing. No errors, no it's ok, Just nothing at all even if left another 30 mins

yes i guess it's possible i didn't need to change the windows partition to boot, but i look at my laptop partitions, and the recovery wasn't boot, and windows was, so logically i thought it can't hurt to have them the same.

 

[Dtcmusic]

Eventually use Ubuntu install disk to run full system from cd
Checked partitions, for some reason recovery partition had become boot drive ! so i put that back to windows partition. This changed things, but still no boot
Used a linux tool to scan and fix NTFS drive, which only found some corrupt parts withing one user profile, and that was in a camera picture folder.
Really not sure why that would stop windows booting but ho hum !
Anyway all up and running now thanks to Linux !
Thanks for your help, at least i learnt how to force a safe mode and get extra options from the boot if i need to

So this wasn't a hardware problem? I'm trying to get my friend's laptop to boot up with exactly the same errors you were getting. At least this has given me some hope of fixing it. I've never used Ubuntu poor Linux tools but I'll have a look.

Thanks

 

[Dtcmusic]

That meant to say 'I've never used Ubuntu or Linux tools' not 'poor Linux tools'!