System partiton was not found

[LAROSE]

I've not used many forums so bear with me please. I am also doing all this typing via my phone so sry for misspelled words.

Ok here goes. Three days ago I shut down my comp like normal. When I got home after. work and booted my system up all i got was a grey screen. I checked the monitor and graphics card, and they both checked out. So i created an ISO DVD. I ran the startup repair which told me "MBR is corrupted" and found the tutorial here that uses bootsect.exe. When i went looking for which drive was the dvd (which is G btw), I found a D drive NTFS partition backup of 86 mb but NO C DRIVE. I ran the bootsect.exe anyway but ended up with "system partition not found".

Please advise. I'm now stuck and not sure where to go from now.

 

[VistaKing]

:ar: To enter System Recovery Options by using Windows installation disc:
Insert the installation disc.
Restart your computer.
If prompted, press any key to start Windows from the installation disc. If your computer is not configured to start from a CD or DVD, check your BIOS settings.
Click Repair your computer.
Select US as the keyboard language settings, and then click Next.
Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next.
Select your user account and click Next.

:ar: On the System Recovery Options menu you will get the following options:
Startup Repair

System Restore

Windows Complete PC Restore

Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool

Command Prompt

Select Command Prompt

Type

bcdedit | find "osdevice"

   Note

the | pipe symbol is the key above Enter . Hold shift down and press the key with \ on it

Press the enter key after you inputted the command . It will tell you the drive letter of Windows . It might say its os device partition=D:

Let me know what the results are

You could also try this in command prompt . Press [ENTER] after each line

Diskpart
List volume

Let me know what you get after that .

 

[LAROSE]

Ty VistaKing .. I had done all that before as part of the tutorial ... Here are the results in more detail...
from diskpart list volume:
#: LTR - LABEL - FS - TYPE - SIZE - STATUS - INFO
0: G - GSP1RMCHPXF - UDF - DVD-ROM 3167 MB - HEALTHY - (no info)
1 - D - Backup A1 - NTFS - Partition - 86 MB - HEALTHY. - (no info)
2 - 6: H-L - (no label) - (no Fs) - Removable - 0B - No Media - (no info)

As i said before, no c drive and the dvd is G drive. St.ill running osdevice

 

[VistaKing]

Once you find out which drive has Windows 7 installed do this

 cd c:\windows\system32

Press [ENTER]

Type

 bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

Press [ENTER]

type

shutdown -r -t 0

Press [Enter]

 

[LAROSE]

I'm sry Vistaking, but as I've said many times now ... THESE TOOLS CANNOT FIND THE C DRIVE WHICH IS THE OS DEVICE. i also ran ur other suggestion with the pipe device and no result. None of the tools can find any files. For example, in cmd prompt i did c: <enter> followed by dir <enter> and the system had identifying info for the c drive but no files were found. So i cannot do what u asked.

OOC ... does Windows 7 use anything like a FAT file? Like used in old NT and 2K systems? If it does, is that NTFS or the MBR? Or something else?

 

[LAROSE]

Also. just tried chkdsk on c drive and got "Cannot open volume for direct access."

 

[VistaKing]

Windows 7 uses NTFS by default . Fat file system is too old for Windows 7 . But it does use a Fat32 file system if you have a UEFI bios

 

[LAROSE]

I don't have a uefi bios.

 

[VistaKing]

When you did Dir C: did it locate a windows folder ?

 

[LAROSE]

No files what so ever.

 

[LAROSE]

I quote "the system cannot find the path specified" from cd c:\windows

 

[VistaKing]

I'd do a backup of my files and do a clean install of Windows . Can you remove the drive and plug it into another pc (desktop) as a slave drive

 

[LAROSE]

No other computer to do that with. 80% of the stuff on my system i can get back .. it will just take time. soooo reinstalling is my only course at this time?

 

[VistaKing]

That's the last resort . You tried startup repair . It doesn't locate drive C . What is drive D ?

 

[LAROSE]

See msg #3 .. that is all i know

 

[VistaKing]

I'd save the stuff I need and reinstall Windows . That means you will have to reinstall applications as well

Take a great tutorial below

:ar: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

Follow the instructions to the letter and you should have a nice working windows 7 installation .

 

[LAROSE]

Ty Vistaking .. sadly i can't save anything but at leadt most of it is replaceable. TY

 

[VistaKing]

You're welcome

 

[LAROSE]

Quick question about the reinstall, should i uninstall my graphics card physically and what changes do i need to the tutorial if i don't have access to ethernet? i use WiFi .

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Don't worry about the graphics card. Locate and download your WIFI adapter driver before hand, and keep it handy on a USB drive as you might have to install it manually from there after the Windows install.

Regards,
Golden