Urgent Help!!

[zach21uk]

I installed some new drivers and now my windows 7 will not boot. It starts to load and then blue screens.

I've tried doing a system restore but this errors out saying that it cannont mount the restore point or something, and startup repair cannot find the error, it just tells me to restore.

I tried booting my installation CD and using the repair option, but this just takes me to the startup repair screen again.

Safe Mode does not work, neither does safe mode with networking, or last known good configuration

Is there some way to do a repair installation?

I also uninstalled a couple of programs and removed their left over registry keys, maybe the registry got corrupted? Is there any way to restore or fix the registry?

 

[SoLoR]

safe mode and remove drivers that you installed? if that doesnt work, to reformat, its faster

 

[zach21uk]

I cannot reformat, I have thousands of files that cannot be lost

Safe Mode will not boot

 

[zach21uk]

Startup repair is now saying there is a corrupt registry

 

[SoLoR]

then do another "upgrade" or well reinstall and hope for the best. or install to other partition, save files and reformat...

 

[zach21uk]

Upgrade only works when you can boot into windows in the first place.

Is there any command I can use in command line to restore an older copy of the registry?

 

[Dwarf]

Hi zach21uk,

Have a look at the following Tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/666-advanced-boot-options.html

Select the option Last Known Good Configuration (advanced).

 

[TheVinesKid]

Upgrade only works when you can boot into windows in the first place.

Is there any command I can use in command line to restore an older copy of the registry?

navigate to c:\Windows\
now enter: regscan /restore
choose a restore point.
Asuming you have restore points, this should work.

Alternativly you can try C:\reg delete /[driver's reg value]
to delete things manually, if you know which one caused your problems.

 

[jimbo45]

I cannot reformat, I have thousands of files that cannot be lost

Safe Mode will not boot

Can't help you here but anybody reading this post should look at this and ALWAYS SEPARATE DATA / USER / MUSIC etc files AWAY FROM THE OS. (Caps intended)

I've seen posts on here telling people NOT to partition hard drives -- this is UTTER B/S now -- an OS won't need 250 GB - 2TB (typical hard disc sizes these days).

Windows 7 X-64 with loads of apps intalled on it won't need much bigger than 35GB and that's plenty -- on a laptop I'm running the paging disc on "C" as well.

So KEEP a separate partition for your OS AND ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR DATA.

The only possibility I can see for you is to use another machine and create something like an Ultimate rescue CD. Boot from this and try and save your data files to another disc / partition / USB device etc etc.

Then re-format.

For a rescue CD try this (but you'll have to use another machine to download and create if your current machine is broken).

UBCD for Windows

cheers
jimbo

 

[zach21uk]

navigate to c:\Windows\
now enter: regscan /restore
choose a restore point.
Asuming you have restore points, this should work.

Alternativly you can try C:\reg delete /[driver's reg value]
to delete things manually, if you know which one caused your problems.

I'm in the windows folder but regscan "is not recognised as an internal or external command operable program or batch file"

 

[TheVinesKid]

I'm in the windows folder but regscan "is not recognised as an internal or external command operable program or batch file"

hmm, only works with win98 and below... sorry about that.
well, the "reg delete /" will work, assuming you can find the driver keys.

Do you know what drivers were installed?

 

[bodmas]

Try this:

Insert the win7 disk and boot and chose for "repair your computer". click next and further chose for "use recovery tool". here chose for "startup repair"

hope this helps you.

 

[zach21uk]

Another question for you gurus here.

If i go to install a fresh copy of windows 7, it mentions that it has detected an old windows folder on the partition and will rename it to windows.old

It dosent mention anything about the users folder - but will this be renamed and kept too? As I have alot of files in my user folder.

IF not, I can just backup this folder using command line, but its like 80gb so if its going to keep it anyway, I dont need to

 

[RST101]

There is the possibilty of creating another partition upon another fresh install. That way you will be able to retrieve your files by going into the other partition once your up and running.

 

[RST101]

You could always do a fresh install and create another partition then that way you will still have access to them once your up and running.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Another question for you gurus here.

If i go to install a fresh copy of windows 7, it mentions that it has detected an old windows folder on the partition and will rename it to windows.old

It dosent mention anything about the users folder - but will this be renamed and kept too? As I have alot of files in my user folder.

IF not, I can just backup this folder using command line, but its like 80gb so if its going to keep it anyway, I dont need to

Windows should store the entire old disk structure in the Windows.old directory. You will also need to change the security settings of your old user directory to allow access to your files once installed.

I've had to use this option a few times when repairing boot issues on other computers.

 

[Mark]

Windows should store the entire old disk structure in the Windows.old directory. You will also need to change the security settings of your old user directory to allow access to your files once installed.

I've had to use this option a few times when repairing boot issues on other computers.

+1 this solution works and you won't loose anything except your installed programs.

 

[Logos]

Can't help you here but anybody reading this post should look at this and ALWAYS SEPARATE DATA / USER / MUSIC etc files AWAY FROM THE OS. (Caps intended)

I've seen posts on here telling people NOT to partition hard drives -- this is UTTER B/S now -- an OS won't need 250 GB - 2TB (typical hard disc sizes these days).

I was gonna post the same. Having a one drive disk and all data (documents, music, pics etc...) saved on C together with the OS is pure madness. The worse is a majority's doing that, as if partitioning a hard disk was evil or something, or, funnier, too difficult...see the result and how cool and easier it is to restore anything when you can't even boot into safe mode anymore...

OK if the methods that were suggested don't work for the OP, and you must retrieve any data before reinstalling (get yourself a D drive at least this time ), get hold of a Linux live CD, boot it, be sure that NTFS access is enabled, access your data and copy it to any media (your data is most likely not EFS encrypted so that shouldn't be a problem).

edit: a simple reinstall with no formating (and old Windows install gets moved to a separate folder) is also an option. But don't rely on that in the future.