Stuck in repair loop. Major help needed

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  1. Posts : 1
    7
       #1

    Stuck in repair loop. Major help needed


    I decided to upgrade my computer to Windows 7 about 3 weeks ago.
    Everything had been running fine until this past week.
    Windows started just acting.....strange.
    It would randomly lock up, requiring a hard restart, the top bars on applications would flash, and random applications would fail.
    Then came an update, the application failures stopped, but the application bar flashing remained, this I could deal with though.
    I thought my problems were over.
    Then 3 days ago my photo viewer stopped working, the application would open, but pictures would not load, it seemed to be in a perpetual loading state, could be related to the greater problem, I don't know.
    Then the worst started in.
    I began to get notification bubbles at the bottom left of my screen, telling me that certain files were corrupted.
    They seemed unrelated to me, addon files in a game folder became corrupted, firefox files became corrupted, and thus firefox became unusable.
    I decided to restart to see if it might alleviate any of said problems, then disaster.
    Instead of a normal boot, it went automatically into startup repair mode.
    It searched for any problems, even tried to fix them (as it says) and gave me the helpful "startup cannot repair this computer automatically" line.
    So I decided to try my other options, only to find out I have NO restore points, whatsoever.
    Startup repair can't fix anything, I have no restore points, and I am not dual booting 7.
    My disk has not failed either, I can still access all my files when using it as an external.
    Upon trying to boot as an external, it prompted me that certain .hal files were either missing or corrupt, the names of which escape me.
    I need to know if there is a way to repair or upgrade my windows 7 installation without losing all of files already on the harddrive.
    I have a newer build of 7 bootable on disc, already installed is build 7000.
    Although I know it is impossible to upgrade from the bootable disc, if not running a currently working version of Windows.
    I need options before I decide to move my needed files off the harddrive and do a clean install, as it would be most time consuming and frustrating.
    Might there be a way to upgrade the OS while the harddrive is being used as an external? Or some other way to repair my installation?

    Any help would be MOST appreciated!
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 202
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
       #2

    Need your system specs first.

    How old is the HD? Did you upgrade from another OS, if so what, vista, or XP?

    For future use: Best advice: install a clean install of just windows 7, upgrading from another OS causes these kinds of problems.

    Reboot and put in the windows 7 disc as if you were reinstalling, set your CDrom to boot first, and load the disc up, let it run its install. Select the partition or HD that has windows 7 as if you were installing, it will let you know there is a previous version installed, would you like windows to repair it? Try that.

    And one last thing, the clean windows install from the windows 7 beta disc only took me about 20 minutes... at this point with these kinds of errors you might have to do this.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 4,282
    Windows 7 Ultimate Vista Ultimate x64
       #3

    You said that it was usable when you used it as an external, I think that may have been a bad idea, I don't know if the same applies but once I tried putting my external internal and it lost all the data and I had to reformat the disk.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 3
    Win7/Win Vista/ Win-XP Pro
       #4

    This is a bug in Win 7 RC - was not present in previous


    omnishi1988 said:
    I decided to upgrade my computer to Windows 7 about 3 weeks ago.
    Everything had been running fine until this past week.
    Windows started just acting.....strange.
    It would randomly lock up, requiring a hard restart, the top bars on applications would flash, and random applications would fail.
    Then came an update, the application failures stopped, but the application bar flashing remained, this I could deal with though.
    I thought my problems were over.
    Then 3 days ago my photo viewer stopped working, the application would open, but pictures would not load, it seemed to be in a perpetual loading state, could be related to the greater problem, I don't know.
    Then the worst started in.
    I began to get notification bubbles at the bottom left of my screen, telling me that certain files were corrupted.
    They seemed unrelated to me, addon files in a game folder became corrupted, firefox files became corrupted, and thus firefox became unusable.
    I decided to restart to see if it might alleviate any of said problems, then disaster.
    Instead of a normal boot, it went automatically into startup repair mode.
    It searched for any problems, even tried to fix them (as it says) and gave me the helpful "startup cannot repair this computer automatically" line.
    So I decided to try my other options, only to find out I have NO restore points, whatsoever.
    Startup repair can't fix anything, I have no restore points, and I am not dual booting 7.
    My disk has not failed either, I can still access all my files when using it as an external.
    Upon trying to boot as an external, it prompted me that certain .hal files were either missing or corrupt, the names of which escape me.
    I need to know if there is a way to repair or upgrade my windows 7 installation without losing all of files already on the harddrive.
    I have a newer build of 7 bootable on disc, already installed is build 7000.
    Although I know it is impossible to upgrade from the bootable disc, if not running a currently working version of Windows.
    I need options before I decide to move my needed files off the harddrive and do a clean install, as it would be most time consuming and frustrating.
    Might there be a way to upgrade the OS while the harddrive is being used as an external? Or some other way to repair my installation?

    Any help would be MOST appreciated!
    This behavior is due to a bug unique to Win 7RC - it was NOT present in previous builds. Let's hope for a quick fix and re-release. After all it makes NO sense to send out a fix for an OS into which you cannot boot - right?
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 5,747
    7600.20510 x86
       #5

    jahLux said:
    This behavior is due to a bug unique to Win 7RC - it was NOT present in previous builds.
    Um, did you notice the date of the OP? 3/1/09 (You had to, to resurrect such an old thread lol)

    The RC was far from being released yet even.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 3
    Win7/Win Vista/ Win-XP Pro
       #6

    Whoops . . . .


    I hadn't noticed the date - but my observation/comment still stands!!
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 3
    Win7/Win Vista/ Win-XP Pro
       #7

    As they say in football -"Upon further review ......."


    Like they say in football - 'Upon further review' - the culprit preventing booting of the new, successfully installed Windows 7100 has turned out to be ACRONIS OS Selector.
    I'd been using this otherwise elegant bootloader with Vista, XP and other OS'es. After installing Windows 7 and booting it sucessfully from within the Vista boot manager, I then unleashed Acronis [v.2160] - this action 'wiped-out' the Windows 7 bootloader, thus making the BootManager unable to see/boot the newly installed Win7 partition.
    I'm now seeking a 'compatible' MultiBoot loader.
    Any suggestions?
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 2
    windows 7
       #8

    I had a similar problem tonight when upgrading my mother-in-law's Dell XPS. I tried the startup repair route three times before it finally told me that it couldn't solve my problem. Finally, I turned off the external hard and restarted and it worked. There was some sort of confusion when booting having the external hard drive on, but turning it off seemed to solve the problem. Hope this helps! Good luck!
      My Computer

  9.    #9

    Plug back in your external and see in Disk Management if it is formatted Primary and maybe somehow got marked Active.

    If so, move the data off and reformat Logical which can't mark itself active, or use free Partition Wizard CD to mark it inactive and convert to logical without having to move data.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 2
    windows 7
       #10

    stuck in repair


    Hi All,

    The other week we decided to update from windows XP to 7. We bought windows7 off of their website, so no disc. It worked great for about a week and then it crashed. Now when it starts I'm stuck in repair mode. I let it scan all night and it just froze up. Any help is appreciated.

    Thanks
      My Computer


 
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