Solved Computer won't boot to Windows 7 pro - have tried everything

[bags305]

i'm back into the PW cd, but there's nothing clearly identified as the Windows 7 partition, so i'm working with the largest partition. nothing's lettered or id'd. there's no grey border or anything else i can "grab". i tried right clicking the only NTFS partition i show and move/resize and tried to increase the partition size manually. on the screen, the numbers would transfer from "unallocated space before" to the "partition," but after i was done, it wouldn't keep it. did you look at the photo i posted? does it look like i have the correct software version??

 

[gregrocker]

rightclick on the partition to Explore. Do you see the Windows folder, your data?

Was this the Win7 partition? Did you delete it or do any partitioning that makes it questionable that it's there? Where else would it be?

 

[bags305]

explore is grayed out on both the NTFS and unallocated. i can see all my data if i go in with the command prompt and use "dos" to look. i haven't done anything to the partition or deleted it or any of that. i will be honest and say that the computer was handed over to me in this state, so i do not know if the owner tried any of that, but i doubt he would know how to do it. he may have tried to do a repair out of curiosity and instinct....

 

[gregrocker]

When you rightclick on Win7 partition to Resize, a pop-up box appears. On the drive map, you will see the left border of the partition and the unallocated space to it's left. Grab the left border with your mouse by left clicking to hold, then drag that border to the left. OK, then Apply. No one has had a problem doing this before.

Every version of PW after 5.2 will Resize Primary into Logical free space. But if not try rightclicking the empty space to Delete Volume first.

 

[bags305]

hmmmm...i finally seem to have gotten it to work, but it was not as you described it. first, the unallocated space was not there. second, the nfts partition was already to the left, so i could not drag it any more to the left. thirdly, i had to sort of drag it in to the right, down to the used space portion of the partition, then drag the whole bar to the left, then i opened up the right edge and dragged that all the way to the right and it made it one complete partition. let me try these other things now.

btw....delete was grayed out on the unallocated space

 

[bags305]

well, we got through it! i ran the windows recover disk and the windows 7 partition was finally listed and it went into an automatic scan/repair before i even did anything. i am now back online, but the only thing is that it only did an auto repair once and after that, it was working.

 

[bags305]

can you help me determine what triggered this nightmare?

 

[gregrocker]

Did you run Rebuild MBR from PW Disk before trying Startup Repair again? I'm just asking.

It is hard to say what caused the Repair to finally work. Was the installation detected earlier to repair? Did you note what was reported in the Repair details?

Since we are dealing with the boot sector here, I thought it might be important to resize Win7 back over it. This was only a hunch and may or may not have had an effect. Sometimes resizing Win7 over the boot sector requires Repairs so we know it can matter. If the installation only showed up to repair after that then it likely contributed.


Here are troubleshooting steps you can use to monitor your System resources for problems, check logs for repeat errors to resolve, generate a System Health Report, test hardware if ever indicated, etc.

I would also immediately scan your system with Belarc Advisor to audit the installed Product Keys including that of Win7, in case you need to reinstall. After determining if Win7 is running fine, also save a backup image which can reimage your HD in 20 minutes if Win7 ever becomes irreparable. Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup


You can mark the thread solved at top.

 

[curtiswardwell]

I hope that I am not confused, But by reading trough all of this one of your main concerns was not having a product code for win seven, I do not know if anything else was suggested to find the product code, You may want to try this link and is free, I have used this before and works on all Windows OS and Office and other programs. Just download the free version: KeyFinder | Magical Jelly Bean

Sitll Learning, Learning Still

Curtis

 

[Kaktussoft]

"system volume is corrupt" .
DISKPART
SEL DISK 0
DETAIL DISK
LIST PARTITION
SEL PARTITION #X (#X is partition number)
DETAIL PARTITION
LIST VOL
SEL VOL #X (#X is volume number)
DETAIL VOL


This tells you a lot of info!! If it's healthy or corrupt for example

 

[bags305]

when i checked the system logs, there was a file "atwpkt.sys" that was installed a short time prior to the crash. i think it is related to a company software hosting program "atwin2k" also, there was a "multiprocessor free" update for windows 7 sp1 about 25 minutes before it crashed. system logs also mention the system volume being corrupted about a half dozen times at maybe 5 or 10 minute intervals.

oh, yes, i rebuilt the MBR, but i don't know what "installation" you are referring to in the next sentences.

 

[Kaktussoft]

when i checked the system logs, there was a file "atwpkt.sys" that was installed a short time prior to the crash. i think it is related to a company software hosting program "atwin2k" also, there was a "multiprocessor free" update for windows 7 sp1 about 25 minutes before it crashed. system logs also mention the system volume being corrupted about a half dozen times at maybe 5 or 10 minute intervals.

oh, yes, i rebuilt the MBR, but i don't know what "installation" you are referring to in the next sentences.

system logs also mention the system volume being corrupted about a half dozen times at maybe 5 or 10 minute intervals.
=>did these messages start before installing atwpkt.sys? Als before installing that update for win7sp1?

If so, the installation and update is not the reason for "system volume corrupt" issue

 

[bags305]

well one thing i'm noticing that's coming up a lot - as far back as may 2010 or longer is "the driver detected a controller error on \device\harddisk1\dr1"

sometimes it's harddisk2\dr2 or harddisk5\dr5, but mostly 1 and then 2, second most frequent. these were coming up heavy in dec 2011 - well over a couple hundred occurrences. i am looking for other info...

 

[Kaktussoft]

harddisk5??? how may harddisks do you have?

 

[bags305]

just one, like most computers, but maybe it was picking up a flash drive or external hard drive. "1" comes up 80% of the time or maybe more..

 

[bags305]

it also says "the system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur." This was just before a flood of "system corrupted" errors...and also maybe a half hour before the thing crashed down.

correction - the "half dozen" errors were clustered all closer together - 6 of which occured at the same time, appx 20 mins before crash or less. they were not the same, but mention harddiskvolume 2 and c: as being corrupted. the earliest addressing harddiskvolume2 seems to be at 2:36. then another at 3:09 and 3:10, then a bunch at 3:19

EDIT/UPDATE: system crash time looks to be 3:22, as the logs stopped recording at that point, and also there is a couple of kernel entries saying the system was getting shut down

 

[bags305]

also, there was what looks like an automatic reboot from a "bugcheck," which was a few seconds after the windows "7601 sp1 multiprocessor free" and about 2 minutes BEFORE an unexpected system shutdown....so it is starting to seem like this computer must have automatically downloaded and installed an update that required an automatic restart (at 2:08) and then after that it seems like all hell broke loose.

it looks like the "atwin2k" service that i mentioned occurred after this point and not necessarily before the errors/crash. also, i am finding the same log on prior days. it's not actually an error and doesn't look related after all. i'm leaning towards this windows "multiprocessor free" which i'm guessing is an update.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Event ID 57, event ID 55, and event ID 50 may be logged when you use Windows Cluster on Windows Server 2003 is not exactly windows 7 but similar. What EVENTID have the errors in eventlog? What is the event source and description? I mean something like this:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: NTFS
Event ID: 55
Description:
The file system structure on disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume "Drive_letter:"

 

[Kaktussoft]

also, there was what looks like an automatic reboot from a "bugcheck," which was a few seconds after the windows "7601 sp1 multiprocessor free" and about 2 minutes BEFORE an unexpected system shutdown....so it is starting to seem like this computer must have automatically downloaded and installed an update that required an automatic restart (at 2:08) and then after that it seems like all hell broke loose.

it looks like the "atwin2k" service that i mentioned occurred after this point and not necessarily before the errors/crash. also, i am finding the same log on prior days. it's not actually an error and doesn't look related after all. i'm leaning towards this windows "multiprocessor free" which i'm guessing is an update.

maybe "7601 sp1 multiprocessor free" is the culprit. But you told me the errors occured before as well!!

 

[bags305]

that is one of the exact errors and yes, they are mostly event ID 55, but there are also some 131's mixed in. also, there is an "application popup: aolload.exe - corrupt file: the file or directory c:\windows\system32\en-us\msdtc.exe.mui is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the Chkdsk utility."
log name: system
source: application popup
event ID: 26
level: information

this happened just before the group of ntfs errors at 3:19, but it didn't necessarily happen first, as there are also a few NTFS errors that happened before this...although none refer to c:

oh, we do have windows server 2003 on our server...that hosts the "atwin2k" software and we use a client service to run them from each individual computer. also, all the computer stations are mapped to go to that server computer (but the crash was not on the server).