Stuck in repair loop. Major help needed

[omnishi1988]

I decided to upgrade my computer to Windows 7 about 3 weeks ago.
Everything had been running fine until this past week.
Windows started just acting.....strange.
It would randomly lock up, requiring a hard restart, the top bars on applications would flash, and random applications would fail.
Then came an update, the application failures stopped, but the application bar flashing remained, this I could deal with though.
I thought my problems were over.
Then 3 days ago my photo viewer stopped working, the application would open, but pictures would not load, it seemed to be in a perpetual loading state, could be related to the greater problem, I don't know.
Then the worst started in.
I began to get notification bubbles at the bottom left of my screen, telling me that certain files were corrupted.
They seemed unrelated to me, addon files in a game folder became corrupted, firefox files became corrupted, and thus firefox became unusable.
I decided to restart to see if it might alleviate any of said problems, then disaster.
Instead of a normal boot, it went automatically into startup repair mode.
It searched for any problems, even tried to fix them (as it says) and gave me the helpful "startup cannot repair this computer automatically" line.
So I decided to try my other options, only to find out I have NO restore points, whatsoever.
Startup repair can't fix anything, I have no restore points, and I am not dual booting 7.
My disk has not failed either, I can still access all my files when using it as an external.
Upon trying to boot as an external, it prompted me that certain .hal files were either missing or corrupt, the names of which escape me.
I need to know if there is a way to repair or upgrade my windows 7 installation without losing all of files already on the harddrive.
I have a newer build of 7 bootable on disc, already installed is build 7000.
Although I know it is impossible to upgrade from the bootable disc, if not running a currently working version of Windows.
I need options before I decide to move my needed files off the harddrive and do a clean install, as it would be most time consuming and frustrating.
Might there be a way to upgrade the OS while the harddrive is being used as an external? Or some other way to repair my installation?

Any help would be MOST appreciated!

 

[angryman]

Need your system specs first.

How old is the HD? Did you upgrade from another OS, if so what, vista, or XP?

For future use: Best advice: install a clean install of just windows 7, upgrading from another OS causes these kinds of problems.

Reboot and put in the windows 7 disc as if you were reinstalling, set your CDrom to boot first, and load the disc up, let it run its install. Select the partition or HD that has windows 7 as if you were installing, it will let you know there is a previous version installed, would you like windows to repair it? Try that.

And one last thing, the clean windows install from the windows 7 beta disc only took me about 20 minutes... at this point with these kinds of errors you might have to do this.

 

[Mark]

You said that it was usable when you used it as an external, I think that may have been a bad idea, I don't know if the same applies but once I tried putting my external internal and it lost all the data and I had to reformat the disk.

 

[jahLux]

This is a bug in Win 7 RC - was not present in previous

I decided to upgrade my computer to Windows 7 about 3 weeks ago.
Everything had been running fine until this past week.
Windows started just acting.....strange.
It would randomly lock up, requiring a hard restart, the top bars on applications would flash, and random applications would fail.
Then came an update, the application failures stopped, but the application bar flashing remained, this I could deal with though.
I thought my problems were over.
Then 3 days ago my photo viewer stopped working, the application would open, but pictures would not load, it seemed to be in a perpetual loading state, could be related to the greater problem, I don't know.
Then the worst started in.
I began to get notification bubbles at the bottom left of my screen, telling me that certain files were corrupted.
They seemed unrelated to me, addon files in a game folder became corrupted, firefox files became corrupted, and thus firefox became unusable.
I decided to restart to see if it might alleviate any of said problems, then disaster.
Instead of a normal boot, it went automatically into startup repair mode.
It searched for any problems, even tried to fix them (as it says) and gave me the helpful "startup cannot repair this computer automatically" line.
So I decided to try my other options, only to find out I have NO restore points, whatsoever.
Startup repair can't fix anything, I have no restore points, and I am not dual booting 7.
My disk has not failed either, I can still access all my files when using it as an external.
Upon trying to boot as an external, it prompted me that certain .hal files were either missing or corrupt, the names of which escape me.
I need to know if there is a way to repair or upgrade my windows 7 installation without losing all of files already on the harddrive.
I have a newer build of 7 bootable on disc, already installed is build 7000.
Although I know it is impossible to upgrade from the bootable disc, if not running a currently working version of Windows.
I need options before I decide to move my needed files off the harddrive and do a clean install, as it would be most time consuming and frustrating.
Might there be a way to upgrade the OS while the harddrive is being used as an external? Or some other way to repair my installation?

Any help would be MOST appreciated!

This behavior is due to a bug unique to Win 7RC - it was NOT present in previous builds. Let's hope for a quick fix and re-release. After all it makes NO sense to send out a fix for an OS into which you cannot boot - right?

 

[torrentg]

This behavior is due to a bug unique to Win 7RC - it was NOT present in previous builds.

Um, did you notice the date of the OP? 3/1/09 (You had to, to resurrect such an old thread lol)

The RC was far from being released yet even.

 

[jahLux]

Whoops . . . .

I hadn't noticed the date - but my observation/comment still stands!!

 

[jahLux]

As they say in football -"Upon further review ......."

Like they say in football - 'Upon further review' - the culprit preventing booting of the new, successfully installed Windows 7100 has turned out to be ACRONIS OS Selector.
I'd been using this otherwise elegant bootloader with Vista, XP and other OS'es. After installing Windows 7 and booting it sucessfully from within the Vista boot manager, I then unleashed Acronis [v.2160] - this action 'wiped-out' the Windows 7 bootloader, thus making the BootManager unable to see/boot the newly installed Win7 partition.
I'm now seeking a 'compatible' MultiBoot loader.
Any suggestions?

 

[atorman]

I had a similar problem tonight when upgrading my mother-in-law's Dell XPS. I tried the startup repair route three times before it finally told me that it couldn't solve my problem. Finally, I turned off the external hard and restarted and it worked. There was some sort of confusion when booting having the external hard drive on, but turning it off seemed to solve the problem. Hope this helps! Good luck!

 

[gregrocker]

Plug back in your external and see in Disk Management if it is formatted Primary and maybe somehow got marked Active.

If so, move the data off and reformat Logical which can't mark itself active, or use free Partition Wizard CD to mark it inactive and convert to logical without having to move data.

 

[justinraz]

stuck in repair

Hi All,

The other week we decided to update from windows XP to 7. We bought windows7 off of their website, so no disc. It worked great for about a week and then it crashed. Now when it starts I'm stuck in repair mode. I let it scan all night and it just froze up. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

You need the Win7 DVD for repairs as you are finding. When you get back into Win7, compile the install files into ISO and burn to DVD using this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/32055-bootable-iso-create-installation-files.html

For now, you need to download and burn to CD the Repair disk: Download Windows 7 System Recovery Discs — The NeoSmart Files

Boot the Repair CD, cllick through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to start Win7.

 

[madtownidiot]

Should have installed from a USB flash drive. I bet 90% of installation errors are directly caused by the install dvd. The remaining 10% is resultant of a split between an attempt to install a bootleg* copy of windows, attempts to install on incompatible hardware, and encompassed by terminal stupidity.


* (comparing the theft of 1s and 0s to seaborne acts of rape and murder sounds a bit ridiculous to me)

 

[justinraz]

ugh

i tried to boot using the cd. when this problem first started, i got two choices. Start windows normally or repair. When I picked normally it tried to start up and then go back to the same. I then picked repair. I tried all the repair options. The only one that would run is start up repair, but it just runs and runs. When I hit f8 and try anything from that list nothing happens. Any other suggestions?

 

[madtownidiot]

If you have an older machine and are trying to restore using a system image it could easily take as much as 6 hours, during which there would be almost no visual indication of any progress being made

 

[gregrocker]

Run startup repair fully 3 times with reboots.

 

[madtownidiot]

Usually when a machine gets that badly stuck it's time for a clean install

 

[prsnrs]

Endless Repair Loop " Solution."

Here's how I got out of the loop:
1- attempted boot from DigitalRiver iso DVD.
2- the CD started to "Repair."
3- cancelled repair and another widow opened allowing multiple other repair choices .
4- none of those worked and I then chose "restart Windows."
5- restart took me to the F2, F12, etc. menu.
6- hit F8 ==> "hit any key to start from CD."
7- voila! I was allowed to reinstall Win 7.

I cannot adequately explain why the system let me discontinue the endless repair loop. Most times I received a message stating that I couldn't stop the repair. I'm studying to be a computer tech and am tenacious by nature. Don't give up. I hope this helps someone.

PRS

 

[gregrocker]

Glad you got your DVD to boot to reinstall Win7 - remember F8 for the future.

You would know whether your WIn7 installation was in fact reparable if you had run from the DVD Recovery Tools list you acessed Startup Repair at least three separate times with reboots.

When you bailed out of it because it took too long then that didn't count as running it even once, so it cannot be said that it wouldn't work. It takes as long as it takes, with timeouts built in so it won't run forever.

 

[Xyyz]

Hurm...

This is the exactly the same problem I seem to be having right now, and although Startup Repair hasn't completed it's first run yet, the similarities to the case in the first post of this thread don't fill me with optimism.

I mostly use my PC for gaming, and I noticed a few odd crashes at specific points in a couple of games. First time it happened, I assumed it was a problem with some new DLC and I fixed it with a reinstall of that game. Then I got a very similar problem in an entirely different game, and I started to get a little suspicious. Virus and spy-ware scans turned up nothing, but I noticed my computer was now a little slow for the first five minutes after start-up. I also started getting disk consistency checks turning up corrupted files in odd, unrelated places. I switched on my computer this afternoon and now I'm staring at the Startup Repair screen.

My computer is about six months old, and since I made pretty damn sure all the parts were top-notch when I built the thing I doubt it's a hardware issue.

My concern isn't so much with how to fix this, it's more a question of what on earth caused it and how do I stop it happening again?

 

[gregrocker]

First suspect would be display driver. Check optional Windows Update for newer, then your computer/card maker's Support Downloads website. Try all available drivers to see if it stops. Roll back if not.

Check also the Event Viewer>Admin view and Performance-Diagnostics logs for errors logged at exact moment of fail. Google to solution.

Test your memory using memtest86 and HD using maker's diag/repair full CD scan.

Run sfc /scannow to check system file integrity.

Consider a clean reinstall using clean-copy installer for your version with Product Key stickered to box, wiping the HD first to overcome factory bloatware and useless utilities: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html