Repair Install

Can this be done from within win7 safe mode?

Hello Ron,

Sorry, but a repair install would not work at boot or in Safe Mode. It can only be done from within Windows since it's basically just an in-place upgrade to the same edition.

Brink said:

Hello Ron,

Sorry, but a repair install would not work at boot or in Safe Mode. It can only be done from within Windows since it's basically just an in-place upgrade to the same edition.

I have a friend and tried startup repair (all tests status 0x0 so success). It concludes it can't boot, but No root cause found. system restore doesn't work... no restore points at all. sfc/scannow /offbootdir (with logging) many errors.

On normal boot it enters recovery environment startup repair.

Only thing that works is booting in safe mode. Booting to safe mode is as far as I know, just a minimal normal mode. It uses the standard VGA-driver and only a few services are started.

What extra services do I need to start to be able to do a repair install? I did already try a Clean Startup by disabling all startup items and NON microsoft services by using msconfig.

Ron,

If it was able to boot when you did a clean startup, then it should be a matter of enabling each startup item one at a time to find the culprit causing it to not startup properly.

You may be able to do a repair install from within a clean startup since it's still technically in Windows and not Safe Mode.

Brink said:

Ron,

If it was able to boot when you did a clean startup, then it should be a matter of enabling each startup item one at a time to find the culprit causing it to not startup properly.

You may be able to do a repair install from within a clean startup since it's still technically in Windows and not Safe Mode.

clean startup does enter startup repair immediately. So not working.

How can I simulate safe mode in normal mode? I mean what do I have to disable so it's actually the same? Afterwards i can try a repair install (in place upgrade). Or can I simply boot to safe mode and then start the services needed to do the repair install? I'm not at his house (50miles away) otherwise I just tried it myself

Could be video drivers then. While in Safe Mode, uninstall the video drivers, then install a version that was know to work to see if that may help.

Brink said:

Could be video drivers then. While in Safe Mode, uninstall the video drivers, then install a version that was know to work to see if that may help.

Indeed it was a video driver problem!! Thanx

Great news Ron. I'm glad that got it. :)

1Engineer said:

This procedure is great if the user can actually login to Windows; however, often times the repair is required because Windows will not load and the login screen is not available.

Unfortunately, that's when reinstalling may be required.