Solved Error Loading OS after Restored Backup

[KongMD]

Hi, sevenforums. I'm the owner of a Lenovo W520 (system specs at the bottom). I have been trying to recover Windows after a seemingly successful upgrade to version 1.30 of the BIOS left me with a borked installation. When the installation was finished and the BIOS chip finished flashing, the power LED was on and the fans were at normal levels, but the screen was entirely black except for a slowly blinking underscore in the top-left corner. Since the update's changelog mentions some specific changes to the boot order, I figured my MBR had become collateral damage.

Here are the unsuccessful things I've done so far:
-Checked BIOS for version (displayed as ver. 1.30 w/ ECP at ver. 1.17)
-Booted into Windows PE and ran MbrFix's "restoreMBR" command on the affected drive
-Tried pointing Windows repair image running off my USB drive to the drive controller (RST) files, iaStor.inf and iaAHCI.inf. It thinks the files are unrelated to my system hardware.

-From cmd prompt, bootrec.exe/ScanOS sees my installationon the D: drive. Startup Repair claims it has successfully repaired the installation, but reboot produces same problem.

-Built a custom Windows 7 image using RT7 Lite integrating iaStor.inf and iaAHCI.inf into the Drivers section and repeated last step.

-Ran the familiar bootrec.exe /fixmbr then /fixboot then /rebuildBCD commands. They failed, giving the message "the requested system device cannot be found".
-Manually marked partition 1 active on my system drive. Startup Repair failed again and gives me the following error:


Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Sig 1: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Sig 2: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Sig 3: unknown
Problem Sig 4: -1
Problem Sig 5: ExternalMedia
Problem Sig 6: 1
Problem Sig 7: NoOsInstalled
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033


-I finally got sick of troubleshooting and restored my C drive from a backup I ran a few days ago via my Macrium Reflect rescue ISO. Sadly, I'm still greeted by the black screen and continuously flickering disk activity LED. Booting to the hard disk from inside a multiboot menu (Xboot) reveals the message: "Error Loading OS". What should I do now?!

 

[theog]

Try reset the BIOS back to default.

 

[KongMD]

The problem persists after loading the default BIOS options.

 

[theog]

Do you now what BIOS setting you set before installing Windows 7?

 

[theog]

You may have bad setting in BIOS, or a backup.

Tried pointing Windows repair image running off my USB drive

   Information

Boot up using the Startup Repair CD or Windows 7 DVD. (not the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Disk) If you have a Netbook, you will need a CD/DVD drive.​

NOTE: Make sure no USB drives are plugged in.
Do not use a USB Pendrive for Startup Repair.
startup repair disc-create ​

Do a Strartup Repair:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

 

[KongMD]

Yes:

SATA compat. mode was at "AHCI".
UEFI/Legacy Boot was at "Both"
UEFI/Legacy Boot Priority was at "Legacy First".
My SSD (boot drive) was first in the boot order.

 

[KongMD]

I could run a startup repair if I took out my secondary hard drive and put my combo DVD drive back in (it's a laptop), but my Users folder is on that secondary drive. Should I run the repair anyway and try to anticipate when to put my secondary HD back?

 

[theog]

You can not use a USB Pendrive to do a startup Repair, as startup repair will find the MBR on the Pendrive & not the HD.
Therefore will not detect a problem.

 

[KongMD]

Thanks for the info. Here's what I did to fix the issue:

1) Swapped out my secondary HDD for my DVD drive
2) Verified that DVD had higher boot priority in the BIOS
3) Booted into the installation DVD and ran "sfc /scannow" at the Command Prompt
4) Ran Startup Repair until it was devoid of problems
5) Shut down the laptop and replaced the DVD drive with the secondary HDD (with Users folder on it)
6) Booted into Windows


Thanks so much for your help, theog. Now I can finally enjoy what's left of my Sunday!

 

[theog]

Well done.