Solved Windows 7 laptop won't boot.

[mourinho]

Hi,
So I was installing Displaylink software and when I rebooted the laptop it won't boot anymore. Based on my limited knowledge it does not look like HDD is dead. Looks like something to do with Bootsector, MBR and partition table. Relevant images are included. I have Partition Wizard, Hirens boot cd, Macrium Reflect and Windows 7 DVD that I have used to get it back on and I may have seriously screwed up things further. C drive is showing up as raw and not formatted. Tried the bootrec and bootsect commands and did not help. I have seen "missing operating system" and "1234F" during this saga and finally I am on the blank screen with cursor blinking on the left upper corner

At this point my goal is to recover files if possible. I have tried Testdisk & Photorec (from Hirens boot CD) and it didn't help. Recuva won't detect the partition.

Images in this link (Windows 7 boot problem - Album on Imgur)


Thanks in advance.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi and welcome to SevenForums,
Review this
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html

 

[mourinho]

HI, I had already gone through steps from that link but I am completely lost at this point.

This is a work pc that gets imaged by IT and they looked at it and said there is no way to recover the files since C: is not available. There was no active backup running either. They said the whole disk is encrypted if that matters.

Only thing I can think of at this point is to delete the Basic MBR block shown in the PW screenshot and shrink the "Other" block by 200 MB and mark that as active and run the start up repair from the Win 7 DVD . Does that make sense here?

Thanks

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yep if encrypted you're pretty much out of luck.

 

[mourinho]

Thank You. That was the case.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
I guess the moral of the story is do not use encryption software but since it's a company machine :/