Booting from usb problem

[saagar]

I have an acer laptop that i upgraded from vista to 32bit windows 7 which was installed a few months ago through my USB because my cd drive doesnt work. Now I am getting the unmountable boot volume blue screen error so I am trying to boot the installation from my USB. It gets past "windows is loading files", then it goes to starting Windows with the logo... but after that I get a black screen with just the mouse arrow. Last night I kept this up all night thinking it was just slow but with no luck. I made an USB that has the windows vista system recovery disk on it and Booted that and that worked but I cannot use it to repair because it is for Vista only. any ideas??

 

[mckillwashere]

Can you please edit it were its not all messed up please?
I cannot understand it to help you

 

[saagar]

oops fixed now

 

[mckillwashere]

Okay,
You cannot get it to install via Usb or cd correct?

 

[saagar]

Correct. My cd drive hasnt been working for a very long time. A couple months ago I installed windows 7 using a usb and it worked flawlessly. Now I am using the same USB that has the windows 7 installation on it. After I start the pc with the USB in it I get the "windows is loading files" and that loads...then I get to a starting windows screen with the windows logo....but after that I get a black screen with the mouse arrow on it. I am looking to do a windows repair.

 

[mckillwashere]

Do you use the jump drive for anything else?
Or strictly Win7 installer?

 

[saagar]

Nope only for windows 7.

 

[mckillwashere]

Weird.
Do you have another pc you can try to rebuild the USB boot drive from?

 

[saagar]

I just used the same USB in another PC and it booted and worked normally. This is crazy wonder what kinds of things would stop the installation menu to come up.

 

[mckillwashere]

You are trying to do a repair install?

It may be something with your current install. You may have to try a fresh install....

Or if your machine supports PXE set up a vm with server 2008r2 on there and have it be a remote install server

 

[saagar]

yes but either way I cant get to the install setup with the installation USB in so basically I am looking for a way to get that to work

 

[gregrocker]

Sometimes you have to try several of the methods to boot a USB installer.

I've been lucky because the easiest works for my Kingston Data traveler: format the stick Primary FAT32 in Disk Management, copy the DVD files over into the root, then boot by tapping the key given on first bootup screen for Boot Menu; stick is usually listed under HD's.

Next is this method: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

Others have gotten it to work using Win2Flash. This YouTube SIW2 posted shows how to use ISO with Win2Flash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srOoGhm-jcI

Enable USB in BIOS. If Boot Menu won't come up at boot using key given, enter BIOS setup to set flash stick to boot first, usually found under HD's.

 

[Ztruker]

Try making the flash drive bootable. This works even after you've copied data from the DVD to the flash drive.

Enter the following from a Command Prompt. Note: j: is the DVD drive and r: is the flash drive.

j:
J:\>cd boot
J:\boot>bootsect /nt60 r:

The response will be similar to this:

Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

R: (\\?\Volume{b10cedf8-f889-11de-95a6-001111e11f77})

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

Try booting the flash drive again.

 

[jaguar85]

Hi Sagar, I have same problem....while booting with USB (mounted with Windows 7) starting windows logo appears but after that black screen comes and it wont go beyond black screen Did you managed to find solution for this problem...I am desperate for this solution.

 

[gregrocker]

If you are mounting the USB flash stick then it is not booting.

If you want to install then you need to boot the stick under USB's, Removable's, or HD's.

If you're running a Repair Install just run Setup file as Administrator.

Since this thread was started we also have a tool to write ISO to flash stick which is much easier: Universal USB Installer with Win7 in dropdown menu.

 

[jaguar85]

Thanks for your reply...
Finally I got entry through safe mode with command prompt using F5 & F8 after booting with USB.
But I had only 1 option for Installation...that was custom installation....... Now I have re-installed windows 7 but my all personal documents got formatted...
Is there any way I can recover my personal files after Custom Re-installation (Not upgrade) of windows 7 ????