Boot Problem Win 7

[LaughingCrow]

System i7-860, Win 7 64, GTX 460 (default), 2 Hitachi 1 gig drives, Corsair 550 PSU

This seems to be a convoluted problem and I'm not sure which way to proceed.

Recently did a clean reinstalled Win 7 about a week ago.
Had some trouble getting the GPU systray folder working but got it working a few days ago.
Today, while surfing, the screen went blank/black. A few moments later came back on with a note in the system tray saying something about Nvidia driver failing but recovered. And often these little system tray messages never persist long enough to read most of them.

I saw the Anti-Virus program was running vulnerability scan (but not a virus scan). I turned it off. I turned off f@h.

Check Window's Event Viewer but no info, errors shown.
Shrugged, double clicked on f@h but instead of continuing, it started to download the core. I stopped it.
Rebooted and that's when it got messy.

Blue screen with "Session_Initializations_Failed or something like that.
Windows went into repair mod - Start up repair - checking your system for problems. The text suggests a driver problem or new hardware problem - however, nothing was added.
The Repair didn't seem to take, and I rebooted, then it just started to loop into a blue screen on boot.

Note: Through out all of the reboot attempts, got the standard 1 beep POST, BIOS shows drives, etc. nothing unusual.

Pulled drive C out. Replaced it with my old drive C: that I luckily had not reformatted. Boots up fine. One of the differences is the NVidia driver is a couple of versions older. On the recent re-install, I used what ever was the most current. So it's possible this all started with the NVidia driver.

I Hot Plugged the problem drive C: and Windows can see the drive - I checked several directories.

Shutdown. Pull out old C: drive replace it with problem C:
Now on booting I get the error message "BOOT MGR is MISSING"

From what I've researched out, the usual fix for that is to boot with the Win 7 disk and do a repair. Haven't tried it yet, since Windows did try repairing several times and failed (apparently).

I can go several ways here - try rebooting with Win 7 and attempt a repair.

I have Acronis and a backup from a day or 2 ago and can boot up from the Acronis CD and restore from drive D:

Any other options or suggestions?
Should I reformat the drive and then restore from the most recent back (and then change the Nvidia drivers)?

[gingerbee]

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

How to Manually Repair Windows 7 Boot Loader Problems - How-To Geek

and my personal fav Fix a Broken or Missing Bootloader in Windows 7 -- The Official Christopher Heiser Home Page

[LaughingCrow]

First thing I got when I booted up, was this message: "The system has experienced boot failure because of overclocking or changes of voltages." Except that it's never been overclocked.

I've started Window's repair process. On the 3rd reboot, I'm stuck. It wants me to log - To access recovery options, log in as local user. To access the command prompt as well, log on using an administrator account. I have the option of HomeGroupUser$ or John. But it doesn't matter what I select as it won't accept keyboard input, so I wasn't able to type in a password. I pulled out the USB keyboard plug and plugged it back in and was able to input the password.

However, now Windows shows: "Do you want to restore your computer using System Restore." which is pointless. While I made an initial backup with Windows after I first installed earlier in the week, I've since made other backups with Acronis. Which I pointed out in my original post. If I'm going to restore, it may as well be with the most recent Acronis Backup, not Windows.

I have no idea at this point if Windows has fixed the boot sectors.

[LaughingCrow]

I hit the Restore Button to see if that would get it up and running, but just got a BSOD on reboot. On the next reboot, it goes back into the Restore dialog. I don't think this is going to be resolved with a Window's repair. If a Window's Restore didn't work, likely the Acronis backup won't either.

Will seek out other options. Thanks.

[gingerbee]

so if you can get into it just use the last one there to replace your boot loader but i am worried you may have hardware issues

[LaughingCrow]

Troubleshooting on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day isn't what I had in mind. And I have no idea where to start, since everything was working just fine. Will reformat one drive and see if I can restore a backup to that. Or...

I'll just win the Lotto Max and buy a new one. Problem solved.

[gingerbee]

cool have fun

[LaughingCrow]

This doesn't make any sense to me at all. I checked wiring and changed the SATA cable for drive C and rebooted. Got the usual and put in the Windows Install Disk. It asked for Restore and clicked on it. It did a restore and rebooted just fine based on Window's back up from Sunday that it must have made. So, I'm doing another back up. Will format my spare drive and clone it just in case. But I really doubt that changing the cable had anything to do with it. But I'll take it.

[Blu]

^ I'm sure cables can fail just as well as anything else can fail. The headers could of gotten worn out or bent/scratched. You never know what can happen with it. Always good to have spare cables around as well ;)

[gingerbee]

yup i have had cable cause lots of problems b4 it one of the first things i check. glad to hear it's all working again