Win7 x64 does not boot after changing SATA mode

[reminiscence]

Hi all,

So I was messing around with my bios settings and I changed the SATA mode on the SATA controller from AHCI to IDE for some reason. Now the computer does not boot, it simply hangs when the BIOS tries to initiate the boot sequence.

I spent some time reading through problems like this on the forums, and I tried using my windows 7 installation disk to initiate an automatic repair. It goes as far as to recognize the windows 7 installation but when I try to start the repair process it says "cannot select startup entries" or something like that and cancels itself.

I also tried using the command prompt in Windows RE and using bootrec /fixmbr and /fixboot, which both worked. However, when I try bootrec /rebuildbcd, it recognizes my one windows installation (so far so good) but then when I select Y to include it to the boot list, it reports "The requested system device cannot be found" and it craps out.

I tried the above in both ahci (the mode windows 7 was installed in) and IDE, just for kicks and the same thing happens. I'm also aware of the registry tweak you can make to force 7 to boot up the sata drives, but since I can't even boot up in my computer I can't see any way I can do that.

Thanks for your time, and for your help in advance.

 

[Product FRED]

Try one of these for editing the registry: How To Edit Windows Registry Key Values without Booting in Windows Raymond.CC Blog

 

[win7clutz]

Hey ProductFRED.

Good post, I didn't knows these tools existed. I can think of various times over the years they could have saved my butt. Thanks for the info...

 

[Product FRED]

Anytime

These pre-made environments are lifesavers. Personally, I've never used a Linux-based one, but I have used BartPE back when I was running XP. A lot of them come with tons of tools pre-installed, or allow you to include them in the environment. If you're compiling one using a program, such as for BartPE, you need your Windows installation disc (OEM discs will work too) to create the environment. They're essential Live-CDs.

 

[reminiscence]

thanks alot guys. I'm going to try this bad boy out right now.

 

[Zomby88]

Did you try changing it back or reset the Bios to default settings.

If you do not know what you are doing with the bios DO NOT mess with it.

We should make this a sticky with a Giant Font !

But seriously, did you reset the Bios?

 

[gregrocker]

http://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7-rc-after-installation/

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/whshardware/thread/22bb4290-03cc-4a25-98b4-20ae200d74ba

 

[reminiscence]

Zomby88:

I was so stupid. I knew from previous experience that I should not change the SATA settings, but this time I was trying to flash the ROM in an Xbox dvd-drive and since the machine couldn't detect it, I decided that I should change the mode to IDE and see if that worked. There are two SATA controllers on my machine, but I changed the wrong one (the one with both of my sata hdd's) and not the controller with the drive connected to it. Anyways, here I am. I don't consider myself a windows expert but I think myself as an adept troubleshooter.

Yes, I did change the settings back to what it used to be. I didn't reset the bios cause then there'll be too many settings to change back and besides, i only changed the sata operating mode so there's no use to resetting it. The problem seems to reside in the loading of SATA drivers, because the boot sequence doesn't even work. (The motherboard says "booting operating system....." and then it hangs. Usually the screen's supposed to black out for a fraction of a second and then the trippy windows7 startup animation shows up, but none of this happens.

Gregrocker: thanks for your input, but let me say in advance that i won't be able to do your first suggestion cause I won't be able to boot into safe mode. I already tried your second point, changing the SATA mode to IDE. (and to clarify, I won't be "changing back" to IDE mode as I installed my OS with AHCI.)

EDIT: I didn't read your part on loading the drivers during windows setup. I shall try that out too. Just wondering, shouldn't those drivers be included in the setup disk by default? I don't remember loading any extra drivers during install.....

Also, what do you mean by "click through to Startup Repair to run up to 3 separate times until Win7 starts." I mean, what's the significance of running startup repair 3 times? Please clarify.

EDIT 2: looks like you edited out this paragraph, lol

And finally, I am pretty certain that my partitions are intact. I'm not sure when it said this, but windowsRE was able to report the size and free space of my hard disk, which would suggest that all of the data is still there, right?

thanks again for your time and input peeps. Worse comes to worst, i'll do a new installation on my HDD (without re-formatting,) move all of my important data out, and then do a fresh install. But it would be great if I can just get my computer booting again

 

[Product FRED]

Well in that case, just reset the BIOS. It's not worth all that trouble. Oh, and I'm totally all for modding, but you'll get your Xbox banned from Live for that.

 

[gregrocker]

Haven't heard of switching to IDE mode from preferred ACHI before - may I ask what was the purpose?

The IDE drivers would already be there, so it likely isn't going to work. Can you change it back to ACHI now? Try running Repair afterward if it won't start.

If the MBR had become damaged, you sometimes need to run Startup Repair up to 3 times as it attempts to repair it first then finally rewrites it. But this is more likely not an MBR issue. Repair may still get it up and running in ACHI again though, and no harm to try it repeatedly.

If you have files needing recovery, then use free Partition Wizard bootable CD or live disk to explore them, shrink existing Win7 to make room for new install, then after install try to browse to files from Win7 explorer. After copying files over, delete old installation and recover space (and if necessary active flag and MBR - mark new partition Active to avoid having to do this later) into new Win7. We can help you do this.

If you have no files to attempt recovery, then wipe the HD using installer Custom>Drive tools then format before install.

 

[Product FRED]

Haven't heard of switching to IDE mode from preferred ACHI before - may I ask what was the purpose?

The IDE drivers would already be there, so it likely isn't going to work.

If the MBR had become damaged, you sometimes need to run Startup Repair up to 3 times as it attempts to repair it first then finally rewrites it. But this is more likely an unfixable situation which requires reinstall unless others have ideas.

If you have files needing recovery, then use free Partition Wizard bootable CD or live disk to explore them, shrink existing Win7 to make room for new install, then after install try to browse to files from Win7 explorer. After copying files over, delete old installation and recover space and if necessary active flag and MBR into new Win7. We can help you do this.

If you have no files to attempt recovery, then wipe the HD using installer Custom>Drive tools then format before install.

You can cancel automatic repair when it first starts, then click "Advanced Repair Options" to get to the command prompt. Then use fixmbr to rewrite the MBR and fixboot to fix any boot-related issues. This is useful when deleting, for example, a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, which replaces the default loader with GRUB. Anyways, he's tried that already. He also said he changed the settings in the first place to flash an Xbox 360 drive ROM.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks for filling me in as I tend to skip over Xbox references. Had to be some reason to abandon ACHI since it is becoming the new standard for Win7 installs.

FYI: All former bootrec and bootsect commands are automated in Win7 Startup Repair. But not sure it makes it any easier since it needs to be run up to 3 separate times to repair/rewrite the MBR.

 

[reminiscence]

haha for the record, I was facilitating in the modding of my friend's xbox and he was doing all of the research. I was just letting him use my computer. Look at what a bit of good will can do to yourself. But it's my fault for foolishly changing those bios settings.

and I also just resetted my bios settings to optimized defaults and nothing changed, except for all of my settings which were wiped out lol.

Another problem is that I can't build ubcd4 b/c the laptop i'm working off right now is a mac (dun-dun-dun) and I can't run the .exe that I use to build the disk. The linux iso that was also suggested in the links doesn't work for my ATI video card (it said that during bootup and then asked me to hit enter, then it promptly restarted itself.) So i'm going to do this ubcd thing on a friend's computer tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[gregrocker]

When you're ready, free Partiton Wizard bootable CD is the most useful rescue tool we use around here for hundreds of Win7 related partition removals/recovery. I can't remember a case where it has failed yet, even though resizing can be expected to sometimes fail.

 

[Product FRED]

Alright, I know this is stupid, but did you make sure to set your Hard Drive back as a Master device when you plugged it back in?

 

[reminiscence]

dang you know a forum's well supported when you can't keep up with the replies Yeah i'll be sure to use that partition editor once I give up on everything else.

Also, I did indeed set my hard drive as my first boot device after my shenanigan with the xbox. That's what you mean by setting it to master, right?

 

[Product FRED]

No. I mean make sure that the little plastic thing on the back the drive is in the master configuration. The label on the top of the hard drive will show you how to set it. Also, if the cable is labeled MASTER and SLAVE, make sure your main drive is on the MASTER end and any other drives are on SLAVE.

 

[reminiscence]

remember that my drives are sata, not IDE. No IDE settings to fiddle around with on a SATA drive :/ There are jumper configuration pins on my model but that's for spread spectrum stuff.

 

[Product FRED]

Woops, totally lost track there. So this is a Windows issue, not a BIOS issue? That doesn't make sense. You didn't touch Windows...It has to be something BIOS-related, even if you reset the settings. Look harder before reinstalling.

 

[reminiscence]

Problem solved! Praise god!

arright so I decided I would write back just for the record instead of leaving this thread in limbo.

So I tried basically everything that was suggested in this forum. Along the way, I discovered that you cannot use the ultimate boot disk on windows 7, because I tried it on a friend's 32 bit win7 and it couldn't find the setup files it needs to create the disc.

However, I also found that you can edit the registry through WindowsRE itself. You just open the recovery console (or whatever it's called) and type in regedit. It's so simple!

However, my problem was not the ahci registry key, as it was already set to 0 (enable). With no clue as to why the hard disk was not booting, I decided to install windows 7 on top of the old installation and work from there. But for some reason I could not do that- I would try to install windows 7 using the normal setup wizard, but it would say something like "the partition could not be used" or something stupid like that when I try to select my main partition.

So by that time I was pretty convinced that my installation was toast- i could not find the cause of my old windows installation not booting, and I could not even install a new copy of it on the hard drive. So I proceeded to back up all of my important stuff using Knoppix and restarted my computer to do a reformat and start from zero.

This is where I was really lucky. After I restarted my computer, I forgot to boot off the CD-ROM, so then my computer attempted to boot from the HDD. For some reason, it decided to work differently that time and it told me that the boot files were corrupt and whatnot. So I booted on to WinRE again, and ran the automatic diagnostics procedure. Surprise! Everything fixed itself and now my computer boots up perfectly again.

I'm going to list some possible reasons as to why my computer started to behave itself again. The thing is that I didn't attempt to boot off HDD for a long time, so I can't pinpoint exactly what fixed it. Anyways, here goes:

1. I ran chkdsk using the cmd in WinRE, and it actually found a couple of corrupt files. Dunno why it didn't boot up even after that tho.
2. Just as I restarted my computer to start the reformat, I went into my bios and reset everything once again, and changed the settings again. Again, not sure why this would help cause the settings that I changed were the exact same as I had before (all sata controllers on AHCI, memory manually set to 1600 mhz etc etc)
3. When I booted into Knoppix, I deleted a couple of HD movies from the drive (the HDD was about 95% full previously). No clue if that did anything though.

Whaddya guys think?