Boot failure, don't know the cause.

[MeepMeep]

I don't know exactly what I did, but now Windows will not start.
What happens is that I get the 'Starting Windows' screen for a few seconds, long enough for the colored dots to start spinning. Then it immediately goes back into a reboot.
I tried booting into Safe Mode, and Safe Mode with Command Prompt. There I saw a long list of files it was loading, a short delay, and then back into reboot.
I tried the Enable Boot Log option. I went into the command prompt from the system repair boot option and found that ntbdlog.txt showed nothing interesting, and it had a file date some time in August.
Another thing I tried was going into diskpart. I have four partitions: System Reserved, the main partition, and two smaller ones intended to install linux into. These have letters C, E, D, and F, in that order. I removed the drive letters and then assigned letter C to the main partition.
Startup Repair reported No OS Files on Disk, said it tried a partition repair and failed.
So I left the C and E letters but just removed the D and F letters.
Still the same problem.
Now, when I go into diskpart, the D, and F drive letters are back.
I saw something about making System Reserve active, but I didn't see anything about this attribute in diskpart. Perhaps having it be called C: indicates that it is the active partition.
One time Startup Repair went into a system files integrity check, which took 15 minutes. It reported a failure with error code 0x490. But the next time Startup Repair reported no problems. I ran Startup Repair three times, as I saw suggested in another post.
I would like to restore the main partition to letter C eventually, but the first thing is to get WIndows to boot successfully.
My system install CD doesn't seem to help. If I ask for an upgrade, it tells me to remove the CD and reboot, which of course I can't do. If I ask for a Custom Install, it doesn't give me an option to simply restore/repair system files, and I didn't want to reinstall Windows and destroy all my settings, installed programs, etc.
So please tell me what to do next.
Thanks.

 

[bigmck]

My system install CD doesn't seem to help. If I ask for an upgrade, it tells me to remove the CD and reboot, which of course I can't do. If I ask for a Custom Install, it doesn't give me an option to simply restore/repair system files, and I didn't want to reinstall Windows and destroy all my settings, installed programs, etc.
So please tell me what to do next.
Thanks.

Your System Install CD, you are speaking of the Win 7 disk that you installed the OS with, correct? Tell me if this is what you did. Put the Win 7 disk in the DVD Drive, boot the computer. When you come to the first screen you hit NEXT. This brings you to a screen that has INSTALL. In the lower left corner in small type there should be Repair Your Computer. Did you find this?

 

[MeepMeep]

Thanks for the quick answer.

More info about my problem follows, for anyone else reading this thread...

Yes, I did the Repair Computer from the install CD.
I've also done Repair Computer from the boot from disk, using F8 for the advanced options.
Either way, seems to give me the same results.

I now have the computer in a repair shop overnight, and they'll look into the problem tomorrow. Any ideas I see here on this Forum I will forward to them in case that helps.

The shop did suggest that I try booting from the F8 advanced options using something like "disable automatic reboot on error." This will stop at the BSOD if there is one, so I (or they) can see what it says the problem is. It should also generate a crash dump, which I can analyze. When I brought my PC in to the shop, I hadn't thought of trying these steps.

My prime suspect at this point is that when Windows starts booting, it changes the drive letters to C: for System Reserved and E: for the local disk, but the system files will be on E:, not C:, so perhaps it cannot find them. Does this sound plausible? If so, then how would I reassign the drive letters correctly, so that Windows doesn't try to change them back when it starts booting?

 

[bigmck]

I wish you had held off on the repair shop. The guys here know more than most repair shop people. Good luck

 

[MeepMeep]

I wish you had held off on the repair shop. The guys here know more than most repair shop people. Good luck

Granted, but I didn't know how long it might take to get what I needed from your people.
The repair shop offers free diagnostics to start with, which is basically a full hardware and disk scan. That's running overnight. Then their tech is going to see what's happening during startup. He's more knowledgeable than most people, in my estimation. After all, it was they who told me about booting up with the auto reboot disabled.
Still, if any out there in the Forum have any experience with this sort of problem, your advice is welcome. And if I get it fixed at the shop first, I'll add to this post to tell you all what the problem was and how it was fixed. Maybe this will help the next person who runs into that.