PLEASE HELP!! Cannot get past preparing your desktop

[Ramius]

Okay so I accidently deleted the C: partition and could not boot. Loaded my Windows 7 disk and let it do a repair. It will boot now and it gets to the screen that says "Preparing your desktop" after several minutes the screen turns blue with no desktop icons. There seems to be some kind of disk activity as if it is searching for something it does not find even after 8 hours. So here are my questions, Can I reinstall windows? There appears to be two partitions, the C: drive and the D: drive. The C: partition is small (100GB) while the D: partition is much larger. The D: partition appears to have all my data and programs. Will windows install only to the C: partition and not destroy the programs and data on the D: partition or will an installation wipe out both the C: and D:? Second question, is there some program such as easeus that you can run only on the C: and recover the windows operating system? I am really stuck here and my knowledge is very limited so I could use and would very much appreciate any and all help I can get! Thank you in advance.

Ed

 

[Brink]

Hello Ed,

You might see if you may be able to use a method in the tutorial below to restore the deleted partition if you haven't formatted it.

Partition - Recover Deleted Partitions in Windows

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[alphanumeric]

So you deleted the hidden system reserved? Your referring to it as the C: partition but if Windows 7 was installed properly it should not have had a drive letter?
Have a look at this; http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[Ramius]

Hi Alphanumeric!
Thank you and if you look at the "problem drive" in disk manager the drive shows two partitions. One is a "system reserve" partition the second partition has programs and data files.

 

[Ramius]

I can boot to the drive now after I did a system recovery with the installation CD. It does boot and gets to the "Preparing your desktop" after several minutes the screen turns light blue (not like BSOD) with no desktop icons. There seems to be some kind of disk activity as if it is searching for something it does not find even after 8 hours.

 

[bigmck]

If your system is setup correctly, the System Reserved should not have a drive letter. The C: partition will have Windows 7 and your programs. If there are only two partitions there should not be a D: Is this the way your is?

 

[Ramius]

If you look at the drive in "disk manager" on another machine it shows up as the F: drive with a protected partition and G: drive with the programs and data.

 

[bigmck]

If you look at the drive in "disk manager" on another machine it shows up as the F: drive with a protected partition and G: drive with the programs and data.

On another machine you probably wouldn't get a true read of what they are and you can't see it on your machine. -- Did you go through the Repair Install in message 3 step by step? That should get you going.

 

[Britton30]

If it's possible...
Please post a screenshot of your Disk Management window.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...nt-post-screen-capture-image.html#post2261610

 

[dsperber]

There appears to be two partitions, the C: drive and the D: drive. The C: partition is small (100GB) while the D: partition is much larger. The D: partition appears to have all my data and programs.

Do you really mean "100MB" for the size of the small partition, rather than "100GB" which would actually be quite large although very reasonable for an actual 2-partitition system where Windows and programs are on a real C and "data" is put on a real D.

I assume you're using some kind of standalone boot CD (like from Partition Wizard) to examine your hard drive and explore it, to see what's where. If it's really a 100MB partition (and not 100GB) then it was the original "system reserved" partition where Windows would place the Boot Manager files. This small partition doesn't actually get a drive letter when viewed from an operating Windows system, but I suppose it might show a drive letter of C using whatever software from the standalone boot CD you're now using to view the hard drive.

And what you now describe as "D, partition is much larger", which appears to have all your data and programs, my guess is that this is actually your original true C, where Windows was actually installed. So that means you have just the small "system reserved" of 100MB (and which doesn't actually have a Windows drive letter normally) and the rest of the drive which was originally dedicated to Windows itself, along with programs and data.

Remember, the drive letters you see aren't physically part of the disk partition. They are assigned symbolically and logically by whatever software you're using to view the hard drive. If you add the drive to another machine and look at it, well now you'll have yet different drive letters assigned (by the operating system on the other machine, lettering things starting from its own first available drive letter). So don't be distracted by C or D or anything. We're concerned with partition sizes, contents, and where Boot Manager lives... which must be marked "active" for the BIOS to go there at machine boot time to start the boot process.

As long as you haven't formatted anything on either partition, you can use Windows Repair and Partition Wizard to restore the Boot Manager "system reserved" partition (which needs to be marked "active" and also contain the Boot Manager files, in order for the BIOS to successfully start the boot process there as it should, then going to the large partition where Windows really lives for the rest of the normal boot process leading to your Windows desktop), and you should hopefully be able to get yourself back operational and once again booting normally.

 

[nkorepal]

What you may do is boot from CD on startup and format the partition altogether.

On windows 7 installation, there is an advance option to format the partition before installation.