Rescue/Recovery DVD fails to boot

gregrocker · 15 Jun 2015

I also stated earlier that you can often force Recovery disks to run by wiping the hard drive with Diskpart Clean Command to clear boot or partition table code that can interfere with them running.

If you made a System Repair Disk then you can run the Diskpart Commands in the blue link tutorial from the Command Line on it. But a System Repair disk is not the same as the Recovery disks which do not have those options on them.

Probably best if you don't have Repair Disk is to locate Win7 installation media for your licensed version to boot into the Repair Options first to try wiping the hard drive to see if Recovery disks will run. If not then use the installation media to do the Clean Reinstall Windows 7. Obtaining the media and how to burn it to disk is discussed in Step 1.

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

gregrocker said:

I also stated earlier that you can often force Recovery disks to run by wiping the hard drive with Diskpart Clean Command to clear boot or partition table code that can interfere with them running.

I didn't think I was quite out of options to the point where I'd have to wipe the disk. Especially when at the time I had a working system.

If you made a System Repair Disk then you can run the Diskpart Commands in the blue link tutorial from the Command Line on it. But a System Repair disk is not the same as the Recovery disks which do not have those options on them.

Except as I mentioned, it also doesn't boot. And I know the difference between Repair and Recovery. I feel like you're very used to dealing with idiots, and tend to treat everyone as if they are.

Probably best if you don't have Repair Disk is to locate Win7 installation media for your licensed version to boot into the Repair Options first to try wiping the hard drive to see if Recovery disks will run. If not then use the installation media to do the Clean Reinstall Windows 7. Obtaining the media and how to burn it to disk is discussed in Step 1.

Yeah, I guess I'm now at that point, but I'm still curious why Windows is such a POS and their "Rescue" and "Recovery" DVDs do no such thing.

"Windows told me to update, so I installed Linux"

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

I believe there may be a few restore points created. How can I restore one of them from a system that won't boot?

I'm currently trying the Windows7 installation media "Startup Repair" option. It's been "checking your system for problems" for more than ten minutes now without any progress. Will it ever finish?

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

Startup Repair just finished with "Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically" with a "NoRootCause" problem signature. That's a nice way of saying I'm fu*ked.

I also just used the Restore Point option from the original Windows disc, restored the latest known good restore point, and it still fails with the same problem.

gregrocker · 15 Jun 2015

What about the other steps from Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

gregrocker said:

What about the other steps from Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

Thanks Greg, I'm going through those now.

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

Greg, I believe the svchost.exe virus is a bootsector virus. Any tips on how to restore any bootsector files that may have been destroyed during the process of removing this virus?

I've tried the whole bootrec routines (/mbr, /fixboot, etc) and none have worked.

Windows starts to boot with the "Starting Windows" and the process of building the spinning window above it, but then just spontaneously reboots.

Would bootrec even fix that, or is it already past that point?

Can I run something like "sfc /scannow" from the Windows 7 install disc command prompt perhaps find broken files?

gregrocker · 15 Jun 2015

It's in the tutorial along with everything else that can be done to start Windows 7.

gosssamer · 15 Jun 2015

gregrocker said:

It's in the tutorial along with everything else that can be done to start Windows 7.

In the Troubleshooting Win7 Failure to Boot doc? Nothing in there that I can try succeeded.

It also looks like I don't have the activation number to reinstall and doubt my friend would have it either.

So the only remaining step is to wipe out the MBR and partition table and hope the Recovery DVD will reinstall the system, correct?

gregrocker · 15 Jun 2015

What was the OS that shipped with the PC? That would be what the recovery disks would reinstall. If this is a retail copy of Windows 7 that was installed later, do you know for sure if it was legally activated?

Since you have a boot disk now, what were the results of the Disk Check, SFC, earlier System Restore points, Rebuild BCD?

Which partition was marked Active? Did you run three Start up Repairs after confirming Active partition? Then did you move the Active flag to letter C partition and run the repairs again?

Where is the partition Wizard screenshot so we can see if the boot configuration is correct?

Finally since you suspect boot file corruption, did you followed be last resort step to delete and re-create the System reserved partition?

You said you completed all the steps in the tutorial, yet these are the most important ones and we heard nothing from you about them at all.