Solved PXE-253: No boot filename received

[dragonsfury]

Have been running Windows 7 with no problem until today. Upon booting up my PC, after the first loading screen I get this message:



PXE-253: No boot filename received

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

I get the same message again after a while with "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" added on the end.

• I've checked all connections to my hard drive and all is fine.

• I've made sure my primary hard drive with OS is selected as the first boot device and it also has first boot priority.

• I've tried a startup repair using the system recovery tools.

• There's no system restore point so I can't revert back to anything.

• I've done a chkdsk with the recovery tools.

• I've done SFC but I receive this message "The offline image has a different platform architecture than the running system".

I don't know what else to do.


I have a small idea of what caused this but not 100% sure.


I have two hard drives and was dual booting Windows, so each hard drive had a copy of Windows 7 installed.

My primary hard drive (C:\) was almost full and my secondary hard drive (D:\) was hardly used. I used a third party software to to delete and format my D:\ drive, then I moved some files from C to D.

A while later after this was done I put my PC to sleep, the display turned off but my PC never although when I woke it up I was brought to my log in screen. I didn't think nothing of it at the time and so when I turned my PC off later on and started it back up again, that is when I received the message above and haven't had access to my PC since.

I am guessing a clean install of Windows would fix this problem I am having but it is not an option as I have important files on both my C:\ and D:\ drive of which I cannot access.


Normally upon starting my PC I would be greeted with the Windows Boot Manager to pick which Windows I want to load up. Is it possible that after deleting my secondary OS that the boot process got messed up?


I don't know what else I can do so any help would be greatly appreciated.


Many thanks in advance.

 

[GokAy]

Possibly related to the change you made. Since the PC can't boot from the HDDs it tried to boot from the Ethernet card and gives the error with PXE.

Try: Remove your 2nd HDD and run startup repair 3 times with a reboot in between each repair.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

And why 3 times - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

 

[dragonsfury]

Possibly related to the change you made. Since the PC can't boot from the HDDs it tried to boot from the Ethernet card and gives the error with PXE.

Try: Remove your 2nd HDD and run startup repair 3 times with a reboot in between each repair.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

And why 3 times - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

Thank you for the reply. I disconnected my second HDD and done repair 3 times like you said, each repair was only lasting 5 seconds, I wasn't sure if this was normal or not but it didn't work.

I was reading through your link though, the part where it mentions about the "System Reserve" for the dual booting. That was on my HDD 2 which was also deleted, I thought I would have had a System Reserve on my primary hard drive but there isn't one listed when I go to Install Windows. Does that mean both my Windows were being booted from the System Reserve on HDD 2? Strange.

Following your link I tried the DISKPART and made my primary HDD partition active. I then tried start up repair, which this time was working as intended but it couldn't repair anything.
This is the report I got:

Problem Signature:
Problem Event Name - StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: -1
Problem Signature 05: ExternalMedia
Problem Signature 06: 1
Problem Signature 07: MissingBootManager
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Now on boot instead of the "PXE-253: No boot filename received" showing, I get "BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart"

I guess I have made a little progress.

 

[dragonsfury]

Ok, so I was going to try fixing the BOOTMGR is missing by using the guide here on the forums here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/104341-bootmgr-missing-fix.html

But now I can't even get into start up repair tools.
My Windows is now listed in the System Recovery box as "Windows 7 Ultimate (Recovered)" (it wasn't listed before) whenever I click next I get this message:
"This version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair". Don't know what to do, was sure the fix for the bootmgr would work but can't get into startup repair tools to use the command.

 

[GokAy]

Are you using a Windows 7 Repair Disk? Is it the correct bit version? (You can also use your installation DVDs, of course the correct bit one!)

Is the 2nd HDD still disconnected? Also move the OS drive to the first SATA port (SATA-0 or SATA-1 as called by the motherboard manual)

Do you have an UEFI BIOS?

By the way, you don't need a System Reserved, simply marking C active and running startup repair 3 times (restart in between) should have solved it. I am not exactly sure how this would go if you need an EFI system partition.

Perhaps you need to change the boot order to a Windows Boot Manager instead of the HDD itself?

 

[dragonsfury]

Are you using a Windows 7 Repair Disk? Is it the correct bit version? (You can also use your installation DVDs, of course the correct bit one!)

Is the 2nd HDD still disconnected? Also move the OS drive to the first SATA port (SATA-0 or SATA-1 as called by the motherboard manual)

Do you have an UEFI BIOS?

By the way, you don't need a System Reserved, simply marking C active and running startup repair 3 times (restart in between) should have solved it. I am not exactly sure how this would go if you need an EFI system partition.

Perhaps you need to change the boot order to a Windows Boot Manager instead of the HDD itself?

I am using the Windows Installation which is on my USB. It is the same Windows I used to install it on the HDD so I don't understand how it could be a different version.
2nd HDD is still disconnected.
I moved the OS drive to SATA Port 0, it was on Port 1.
Is there any way of finding out if I have a UEFI BIOS? Not quite sure about this one.

This is my motherboard, although couldn't see anything on the site about the UEFI BIOS: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 760G Socket AM3+ GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket AM3+ - GA-78LMT-USB3 (rev. 4.1)

Perhaps you need to change the boot order to a Windows Boot Manager instead of the HDD itself?

How would I do this?

 

[NoN]

I the BIOS settings of your motherboard there's a tab to enable the PXE or disable it. Could you have misplace this setting? I'll have a look at if so...

 

[GokAy]

It says Hybrid EFI, so I wonder if you would need an EFI system partition too? I am not very good with EFI as I don't have any machines with it. What are the options in Boot Menu (during POST).?

 

[dragonsfury]

I the BIOS settings of your motherboard there's a tab to enable the PXE or disable it. Could you have misplace this setting? I'll have a look at if so...

Hi, thanks for the reply. I got passed the PXE issue now have a completely different problem as above.

It says Hybrid EFI, so I wonder if you would need an EFI system partition too? I am not very good with EFI as I don't have any machines with it. What are the options in Boot Menu (during POST).?

I have no clue about any of it lol

My Boot Menu options are:
LS120
+Hard Disk
CDROM
ZIP
USB-FDD
USB-ZIP
USB-CDROM
USB-HDD
Legacy LAN
Realtek PXE B03

I found an EFI CD/DVD boot option in the bios which is set to Auto

 

[GokAy]

Can you try booting with the USB installation disk and try startup repair from it?

 

[dragonsfury]

Can you try booting with the USB installation disk and try startup repair from it?

That's how I have been booting it up, don't have any other option unfortunately. Get the same message.

I found this from someone with a similar problem: Windows MBR broken after a Windows update - Super User
the answer at the bottom of the page. I was going to follow his advice about converting GPT to MBR but I don't have that option, I only have MBR to GPT so didn't want to touch it.
I tried rebuilding the MBR with it but that still didn't help.

I've uploaded an image, don't know if it will help in any way.

 

[GokAy]

Well, this is a comprehensive tutorial - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html.
It may be a corrupt installation/recovery media. Do you have another 64 bit Windows 7? Perhaps you can create a Recovery Disk or download Windows 7 installer from Microsoft (if your copy is retail and not OEM).

 

[dragonsfury]

Well, this is a comprehensive tutorial - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html.
It may be a corrupt installation/recovery media. Do you have another 64 bit Windows 7? Perhaps you can create a Recovery Disk or download Windows 7 installer from Microsoft (if your copy is retail and not OEM).

Yes, I finally got it working, so happy right now.

I saw in another thread something about Windows SP1 bypassing the "This version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair" message.

I downloaded a legal copy of Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, burned the .iso to my USB and loaded it up. Got to the system recovery options and was not greeted with the message above, I was able to click next and get to the tools. Done one startup repair, was going to do it three times like you suggested but after the first reboot it couldn't find anything to fix, restarted my PC once more and my Windows finally booted up.

Thank you so much for taking the time to help, I really appreciate it.

 

[GokAy]

So it was a non-SP installation disk causing incompatibility?

Good job! Ask away if you need anything else.