An invincible Windows 7 boot problem

Before everything went wrong: I had XP and 7 installed on same 465 GB HDD like this

C: XP ~40GB
D: W7 ~130GB
I: other stuff like movies etc ~293GB

Xp became useless and I decided to format it and allocate the 40BG between C: and I: using some partition program which name I can't even remember. So I applied the process and everything went ok until at 77% a powercut shut my pc down.

Situation after the powercut:

At startup bios gives me error which says something about selecting proper boot device or something and nothing happens. I booted from Ubuntu live cd and using gparted I got a screenshot of partition table:



The I-partition is pretty much ****ed up but the W7 partition seems to be ok. I added the boot flag to W7 partition (didn't exactly know if that was the right thing to do).

W7 install DVD won't help

I've tried to fix this boot issue by using the W7 install DVD but so far it's been useless. After clicking the Repair your computer the W7 installation doesn't show up in System Recovery Options list but I clicked next anyway. I ran the Repair startup -thing at least 4 times and it didn't work (maybe because the recovery tool doesn't recognise the W7 installation). I also tried this BOOTREC thing on Command Prompt:

C:\>BOOTREC /FIXMBR
The operation completed successfully.

C:\>BOOTREC /FIXBOOT
Element not found.

C:\>BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Succesfully scanned Windows installations.
Total indetified Windows isntallations: 1
[1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/NO(N)/All(A):Y
Element not found.

I also noticed there's no boot-folder on C: (should there be?)

Any ideas?

At the moment I just want to get my Windows working again, the lost files on I-partition aren't so important. All suggestions are highly welcome. Thx..

I may not be reading the GParted window correctly, but are all the partitions except the small one in front in an extended partition?

Can you get GParted to clean the drive up and get rid of the extra space?

Can you make the Win 7 partition primary?

Don't try to do all the operations at the same time. Do one or two then apply and more later.

Rausku said:

Before everything went wrong: I had XP and 7 installed on same 465 GB HDD like this

C: XP ~40GB
D: W7 ~130GB
I: other stuff like movies etc ~293GB

Xp became useless and I decided to format it and allocate the 40BG between C: and I: using some partition program which name I can't even remember. So I applied the process and everything went ok until at 77% a powercut shut my pc down.

Situation after the powercut:

At startup bios gives me error which says something about selecting proper boot device or something and nothing happens. I booted from Ubuntu live cd and using gparted I got a screenshot of partition table:



The I-partition is pretty much ****ed up but the W7 partition seems to be ok. I added the boot flag to W7 partition (didn't exactly know if that was the right thing to do).

W7 install DVD won't help

I've tried to fix this boot issue by using the W7 install DVD but so far it's been useless. After clicking the Repair your computer the W7 installation doesn't show up in System Recovery Options list but I clicked next anyway. I ran the Repair startup -thing at least 4 times and it didn't work (maybe because the recovery tool doesn't recognise the W7 installation). I also tried this BOOTREC thing on Command Prompt:

C:\>BOOTREC /FIXMBR
The operation completed successfully.

C:\>BOOTREC /FIXBOOT
Element not found.

C:\>BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Succesfully scanned Windows installations.
Total indetified Windows isntallations: 1
[1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/NO(N)/All(A):Y
Element not found.

I also noticed there's no boot-folder on C: (should there be?)

Any ideas?

At the moment I just want to get my Windows working again, the lost files on I-partition aren't so important. All suggestions are highly welcome. Thx..

Hello Rausku, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

When you deleted the XP partition, you removed the boot code from your computer. Now your W7 partition is a "Logical" partition inside an "Extended" partition and cannot boot, even if it had the boot code. I would suggest the simplest repair would be to use GParted to extend the 7.84MB unallocated space to a 100MB primary, active, system partition and follow this from MS to create the 100MB bootable "Reserved System" partition. Then you will have the ability to boot to W7 again.

How to create a seperate system partition for dual booting Windows Vista and Windows 7

Cheers!
Robert

The partitioning tool which works best with Win7 is free bootable Partition Wizard CD, which has helped remove over 150 dual boots here since Win7 release.

Your partitioning is pretty messed up with what has been done to it already, with the primary problem being what Robert observes above: you have Win7 on a logical partition which cannot be marked active so that the MBR can be recovered into it using Win7 DVD Startup Repair.

When booted, Partition Wizard has the ability to convert a logical partition to Primary using rightclick>Modify>Convert to Primary. Then you can rightclick>Modify>Set active. Resize partitions as you wish. Apply all steps.

Now boot into the Win7 DVD Repair console, click through to Recovery tools to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots so the MBR can be rewritten to Win7.

rausku said:

before everything went wrong: i had xp and 7 installed on same 465 gb hdd like this

c: Xp ~40gb
d: W7 ~130gb
i: Other stuff like movies etc ~293gb

xp became useless and i decided to format it and allocate the 40bg between c: And i: Using some partition program which name i can't even remember. So i applied the process and everything went ok until at 77% a powercut shut my pc down.

situation after the powercut:

at startup bios gives me error which says something about selecting proper boot device or something and nothing happens. I booted from ubuntu live cd and using gparted i got a screenshot of partition table:



the i-partition is pretty much ****ed up but the w7 partition seems to be ok. I added the boot flag to w7 partition (didn't exactly know if that was the right thing to do).

w7 install dvd won't help

i've tried to fix this boot issue by using the w7 install dvd but so far it's been useless. After clicking the repair your computer the w7 installation doesn't show up in system recovery options list but i clicked next anyway. I ran the repair startup -thing at least 4 times and it didn't work (maybe because the recovery tool doesn't recognise the w7 installation). I also tried this bootrec thing on command prompt:

c:\>bootrec /fixmbr
the operation completed successfully.

c:\>bootrec /fixboot
element not found.

c:\>bootrec /rebuildbcd
scanning all disks for windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Succesfully scanned windows installations.
Total indetified windows isntallations: 1
[1] c:\windows
add installation to boot list? Yes(y)/no(n)/all(a):y
element not found.

I also noticed there's no boot-folder on c: (should there be?)

any ideas?

at the moment i just want to get my windows working again, the lost files on i-partition aren't so important. All suggestions are highly welcome. Thx..

hey my friend ! You have trouble with error code 5 ? Or ?

You may be lucky - depends at what stage the data moving on the 7 partition was interrupted.

Some partitioners have a safety feature that will allow it to pick up and continue after just such an event - if you were using a recent Paragon app. - they will.

Partition Wizard is free , so it's worth a go.

Good luck.

gregrocker said:

The partitioning tool which works best with Win7 is free bootable Partition Wizard CD, which has helped remove over 150 dual boots here since Win7 release.

Your partitioning is pretty messed up with what has been done to it already, with the primary problem being what Robert observes above: you have Win7 on a logical partition which cannot be marked active so that the MBR can be recovered into it using Win7 DVD Startup Repair.

When booted, Partition Wizard has the ability to convert a logical partition to Primary using rightclick>Modify>Convert to Primary. Then you can rightclick>Modify>Set active. Resize partitions as you wish. Apply all steps.

Now boot into the Win7 DVD Repair console, click through to Recovery tools to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots so the MBR can be rewritten to Win7.

Actually this was the program I used for partitioning process at the first place :)

So I booted the Partition wizard cd and set the W7 partition as primary and active. After that the W7 DVD recognised the installation and I was able to run the startup repair succesfully. Thx for help...W7 boots now like it should!

But that wasn't the end of the story. When I try to log on to my user account I get this Welcome... -text and like 2 sec after that Logging off... and it returns back to the welcome screen. With admin account the Preparing your desktop... process runs about 30sec and after that all I get is a blue screen with a Windows 7 -text on the bottom right corner.

Ctrl+Alt+Del though works, task manager process list looks like this:

csrss.exe
taskhost.exe
taskmgr.exe
winlogon.exe

Any ideas why I can't log on and why there's only those 4 processes running?

Definitely try SIW2's fix above as it has worked for others with similar problems.

If that fails and you can still get to Task Manager, then insert Win7 DVD, start New Task and run D:setup (replace D with your DVD drive letter) to do a Repair Install

This worked for me before, however the fix Si gives above has worked for everyone who has tried it since, so try it first.

Boot the cd. Select Normal Mode. Select Boot Corrector.



Select Search for Windows installations to correct.

Choose the required Windows installation. Select Correct Drive Letters in the System Registry



Choose a hard disk from the pull-down list (if several), then the required partition. Click the Edit Letters button to correct an existing drive letter or assign a new one in the Windows System Registry.



Once you’ve assigned the drive letter, close the dialog, then click the Apply button. Confirm the operation. Click the Finish button to close Boot Corrector. Eject the CD. Reboot the computer.