Windows 7 won't startup properly - Stuck in startup repair loop

[JeromeBeckett]

I have a Dell Inspiron and a while ago I shut down my PC and the next morning I was faced with options to repair my computer. It hung on the screen for ages before it actually came up with startup repair and supposedly fixed the problem. A few days later, everything got very slow and started to freeze a lot and before long, booting the computer got very slow as well as it hung for about ten minutes on a black screen after the 'welcome' screen before finally starting up. I decided to reinstall the operating system (I did NOT reformat the C drive), so I borrowed my Grandma's external hard drive and copied my files. After reinstalling using a Dell Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium Re-Installation DVD, I copied and deleted the files off the external hard drive onto my PC (I didn't know it would create a Windows.old folder) and started installing programs. Then I left it overnight to install quite a big program. This morning, somehow it had turned off. I turned it on and it gave me the safe mode options and a 'start windows normally' option. I chose the latter and after typing my password it hung on the welcome screen again. I left it for ages and it just went back to the user login screen again. I pressed the red button in the corner to shut it down but it just hung once again on an empty screen so I did a hard shutdown (held down the power button). I turned it on again...startup repair. It gave me the option for system restore, which I did (then realising when it finished that I hadn't made a backup). I booted it, and again it wouldn't start properly. At this time, safe mode booted fine. After trying various things (even using a compressed air can to get rid of dust) and a few hard shutdowns, suddenly every option from the advanced boot menu took me to startup repair except 'Repair your Computer' which gave the normal options for repair (although now it only gives me 2, Startup Repair and DataSafe Restore and Emergency Backup. Now when I do startup repair, some times it says it has fixed the problem, and sometimes it says it cannot be fixed automatically and gives me information on the problem (a few things it said were: 'StartupRepairOffline', 'AutoFailover' and 'CorruptRegistry').

I can't reinstall my computer because then I would lose my precious files.

Is there some way I can save my files and reinstall or even just save my files somehow or am I screwed?

 

[writhziden]

You will need a Windows 7 repair disc to get to the System Recovery Options.

Then try the steps in Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery. Note the warning:

   Warning

The instructions presented withing this tutorial must be followed correctly, or you can damage your Windows 7 installation even further. This tutorial is designed to help recover from a bad registry that is causing the startup repair loop. You should note that there may still be some issues remaining that cannot be fixed by manually restoring the registry.