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Windows 7 installation fails to boot - system recovery? RRS feed

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    Greetings, I'm having an issue with a windows 7 installation which does not want to boot up.  I boot with windows 7 system recovery disc and it does not find my installation of windows 7 on the partition where it resides.

    I've been referring to a thread I found here, but so far have been unsuccessful:

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/7791044e-db7f-4144-a96c-945299811f58/?prof=required

    I kept getting an error message to insert system disk, but now after trying some of the tools listed there such as activating the right partition with diskpart... my system now says disk read error ctrl+alt+delete to restart.

    Unfortunately I don't have my system disk, only this recovery disk.

    I have ran the following:

    Diskpart

    LIST DISK

    SELECT DISK (followed by the number of the disk . most likely 0)

    LIST PARTITION

    SELECT PARTITION (followed by your partition number. most likely 0)

    ACTIVE

    EXIT

    Also, when i try to run startup repair through recovery environment I recieve the following problem details, not sure if this is helpful:

    Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline

    Problem signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385

    Problem signature 02: "

    Problem signature 03: unknown

    Problem signature 04: -1

    Problem signature 05: ExternalMedia

    Problem signature 06: 1

    Problem signature 07: MissingBootManager

    OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1

    • Edited by yoholmes48 Saturday, May 5, 2012 3:23 AM
    Saturday, May 5, 2012 3:17 AM

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    Unfortunately you have not mentioned the HISTORY of your windows installation:

    1. Is this a new install or older one?

    2. Have you install from standard installation medium or special one that install system and applications that added hardware vendor (recovery)?

    3. If this was clean install, have you deleted all partitions and created new ones?

    4. What message oppeares on screen when you are trying to boot?

    Active partition is the very first (in MS naming it is system partition). It should contain information on the boot partition (c:).

    Start your Windows from installation medium and repair it from this medium (recovery in one of the very first step of "installation")

    Regards

    Milos

    Saturday, May 5, 2012 6:19 AM
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    1. Is this a new install or older one?  older.  This system has two hard drives of multiple partitions each, the first had XP and my smaller hard drive has 7.  I no longer need the xp drive and attempted to move an image of the 7 partition onto it using symantec ghost.  I can see all my files on the larger hard drive after it over-wrote the XP installation, unfortunately it will not boot.  Worse still, somehow my 7 drive i created the image from seems to not boot either.  Possibly an aging hard drive too stressed by moving all this data.  strange thing is i was getting the same error to insert system disk when attempting to boot from either drive.  I disconnected other drives and tried them one at a time.

    2. Have you install from standard installation medium or special one that install system and applications that added hardware vendor (recovery)?  special

    3. If this was clean install, have you deleted all partitions and created new ones?  Doing that now

    4. What message oppeares on screen when you are trying to boot?

    disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter (I dont have a system disk  handy, only recovery disk)

    Active partition is the very first (in MS naming it is system partition). It should contain information on the boot partition (c:).

    Im not sure what this means

    Start your Windows from installation medium and repair it from this medium (recovery in one of the very first step of "installation")

    I think this system was done as a download and I dont have access to the medium.  My main concern is to get the image booted up so i can save my data.  This is a 32 bit windows 7 and I'm buying a new 64 bit liscense anyway (cant do upgrade)

    Hope this info helps, let me know what steps i should take after i try the image restore from ghost once more

    Saturday, May 5, 2012 6:35 AM
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    Aha :-)

    Whenever I did multiboot installation, I used one working installation, installed EasyBCD and recovered other installations. Free version of EasyBCD would suffice for Windows 7 and Windows XP

    Here is how I do it:

    1. Install Windows XP on "sample" computer and saved the ghost image partition of "c:"

    2. Install Windows 7 while cleaning all remnants of Windows XP. Let the space free for "future" Windows XP and data ( two partition (Pt). There are System Pt, Windows 7 boot Pt, Windoes XP Pt, Data Pt.)

    3. Expand (recover) Windows XP ghost image on third partition.

    4. Run EasyBCD and set the multiboot and timing.

    5. Appply sysprep procedure in Windows 7 after configuring all necessary applications and future user defaults *) Sysprep is needed at lest for creation of proper default profile.

    6. Do the same for Windows XP as for W 7 in No.5 (overwrite the default profile by properly configured one)

    7. Shutdown and make ghost copy of whole disk. Distribute image to other computers and continue with special setttings **)

    Regards

    Milos

    *) You can change the registry setting in both partition to achieve "invisibility" (google for NoDrives)

    **) I have included "first logon script" that renamed every computer according to MAC address. Similar procedure can be adapted for fixed IP addresses when DHCP is not an option.

    Saturday, May 5, 2012 8:33 AM
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    Aha :-)

    Whenever I did multiboot installation, I used one working installation, installed EasyBCD and recovered other installations. Free version of EasyBCD would suffice for Windows 7 and Windows XP

    Here is how I do it:

    1. Install Windows XP on "sample" computer and saved the ghost image partition of "c:"

    2. Install Windows 7 while cleaning all remnants of Windows XP. Let the space free for "future" Windows XP and data ( two partition (Pt). There are System Pt, Windows 7 boot Pt, Windoes XP Pt, Data Pt.)

    3. Expand (recover) Windows XP ghost image on third partition.

    4. Run EasyBCD and set the multiboot and timing.

    5. Appply sysprep procedure in Windows 7 after configuring all necessary applications and future user defaults *) Sysprep is needed at lest for creation of proper default profile.

    6. Do the same for Windows XP as for W 7 in No.5 (overwrite the default profile by properly configured one)

    7. Shutdown and make ghost copy of whole disk. Distribute image to other computers and continue with special setttings **)

    Regards

    Milos

    *) You can change the registry setting in both partition to achieve "invisibility" (google for NoDrives)

    **) I have included "first logon script" that renamed every computer according to MAC address. Similar procedure can be adapted for fixed IP addresses when DHCP is not an option.

    Forgive me I'm not sure I understand the steps.

    I have never used easybcd before, am I understanding correctly that I should resinstall XP onto my hard drive?

    At my disposal I have only

    -a 1TB external USB drive, with ghost image file of windows 7 system

    - 640 GB internal drive, expanded ghost image currently will not boot

    - 160 GB drive now blank

    I did not make ghost image of XP installation but I have windows XP installation media.

    Would you advise me to create new windows xp install on the blank drive and from there manipulate the other using easy bcd?

    I am unclear on just how many partitions I need.. I have just expanded my windows 7 image onto the 640 gb drive, on a partition I believe 500 GB in size.
    • Edited by yoholmes48 Saturday, May 5, 2012 4:52 PM
    Saturday, May 5, 2012 4:43 PM
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    Hi,


    If we can boot into Windows 7 system recovery console, we can perform Startup Repair.

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/startup-repair?SignedIn=1


    If we failed again, you may contact your machine provider.

    Kim Zhou

    TechNet Community Support

    • Proposed as answer by Kim Zhou Tuesday, June 5, 2012 1:31 AM
    • Marked as answer by Cloud_TS Tuesday, June 5, 2012 2:43 AM
    Tuesday, May 29, 2012 1:48 AM
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    EasyBCD is simple and intuitive third party envelope to bcdedit which allows for faster configuration of multiple operating system (http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/)

    Procedure, that I described is valid for multiple operating system and data partitions on one disk. If you have two internal disks, W 7 is on larger one while W XP is on smaller one, then you will install EasyBCD on larger disk and make this disk botable and configure the boot menu.

    Regards

    Milos

    Tuesday, May 29, 2012 6:22 AM