System Restore (0x8000ffff) - No boot at all

Threads are not closed here as many live on for years in Google searches and thus require being kept current. This is also the top tech forums on the web so accuracy is going to be dealt with at all times.

Are you sure it wasn't a Custom and not Upgrade install? Choosing the Upgrade track will only in-place Upgrade the presently booted OS.

Almost all of the known workarounds for Win7 install were either developed here or are at least known to us. There is not one I've ever seen to allow in-place Upgrade to another OS besides the one booted into.

Anyone else?

gregrocker said:

Threads are not closed here as many live on for years in Google searches and thus require being kept current. This is also the top tech forums on the web so accuracy is going to be dealt with at all times.

Are you sure it wasn't a Custom and not Upgrade install? Choosing the Upgrade track will only in-place Upgrade the presently booted OS.

Almost all of the known workarounds for Win7 install were either developed here or are at least known to us. There is not one I've ever seen to allow in-place Upgrade to another OS besides the one booted into.

Anyone else?

Britton30 said:

Sounds confusing Greg, he said "upgraded" so apparently not a true upgrade. I'm sure you can't upgrade/install a system on a completely different drive, plus he said it's the same OS, so no upgrade occurred.

This exactly. I clicked on upgrade, but used what was already on the drive. It is possible to install windows to another drive on the system, which is why I had 2 Windows 7 after I was done with the upgrade to the simply fix the files. It simply replaced whatever files were there already (kind of a copy/paste thing I guess) which fixed whatever was causing my issue. This, in turn, created the Windows.old file where I was able to recover my data, and then format the drive and Install fresh. I did upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate on that step though.

If windows.old was present then you did a Custom install overwriting the old one, which placed it in the windows old file. That's all that could have happened. Upgrade would not have done this.