Win7Pro froze, now boot fails unless I use the DVD

Taagst · 08-23-2009, 07:07 AM

Windows 7 Pro
Seagate Barracude 320gb (on a 80gb partition)
E6400
P5NSLI mobo

I recently got Windows 7 Pro through MSDNAA and decided to do a clean install from Vista. I didn't nuke the drive, but just formatted the partition and installed.

Everything was going fine until last night, when out of the blue the computer froze. Screen was still on but mouse/keyboard/powerbutton were inactive. I did a hard shut down, and started it up. It got past the bios but hangs on a flashing dos cursor.

I unplugged all my USB devices, and started again to no avail. So I restarted using my Win7Pro DVD, ran the Problem Checker thing and it found no problems with my OS.

I then ran the HD/mem error check, it too found no problems, but afterwards it restarted and booted into Windows fine. I left my computer on last night thinking it was fine, it must've gone into hibernate or sleep, when I started it this morning I get the same blinking cursor. I redid the DVD check and here I am.

What the heck could this be? Is my harddrive failing?

Raddy13 · 08-23-2009, 09:50 AM

Go into your BIOS and double check the boot sequence of your devices...it seems like its trying to boot from something that has no boot information. Put your hard drive as number one priority and see if it boots into Windows on its own.

Taagst · 08-23-2009, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raddy13

Go into your BIOS and double check the boot sequence of your devices...it seems like its trying to boot from something that has no boot information. Put your hard drive as number one priority and see if it boots into Windows on its own.

It was set only to boot from HD, no others.

But your solution made me realize something that may have been the problem. The harddrive with my OS is separated into 3 partitions; C:\ has the OS with 80gb, E:\ has 20gb but was blank (I used it to test install Win7 before deleting it) and F:\ is my data partition with 200gb.

When I use the repair part of the DVD it was indicating that the Win7 OS was found on the E:\ drive, where I had it temporarily before deleting it, instead of the C:\ drive where it actually is.

So, I just removed E:\ drive and added it to C:\, maybe I was getting a boot conflict like you were saying. I'll have to test and see.

Raddy13 · 08-23-2009, 01:00 PM

That could very well be the problem. Even when you have multiple partitions on the same hard drive, the Windows boot loader will still point your computer to the correct partition. If you originally installed it on the E: partition, your boot loader might still be a pointing to that partition, even if it's not still there. Something to try is to put in your Windows 7 DVD and go to the recovery console. Once you're there, type in the following commands (make SURE you type these in the C: path) pressing enter after each one:

Code:

C:\>fixboot
C:\>fixmbr

If the bootloader is still pointing to the E: partition, that should fix it. Let me know how it works out.

08-23-2009, 07:07 AM	#1 (permalink)
Taagst Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2 OS: Win 7 Pro	Win7Pro froze, now boot fails unless I use the DVD Windows 7 Pro Seagate Barracude 320gb (on a 80gb partition) E6400 P5NSLI mobo I recently got Windows 7 Pro through MSDNAA and decided to do a clean install from Vista. I didn't nuke the drive, but just formatted the partition and installed. Everything was going fine until last night, when out of the blue the computer froze. Screen was still on but mouse/keyboard/powerbutton were inactive. I did a hard shut down, and started it up. It got past the bios but hangs on a flashing dos cursor. I unplugged all my USB devices, and started again to no avail. So I restarted using my Win7Pro DVD, ran the Problem Checker thing and it found no problems with my OS. I then ran the HD/mem error check, it too found no problems, but afterwards it restarted and booted into Windows fine. I left my computer on last night thinking it was fine, it must've gone into hibernate or sleep, when I started it this morning I get the same blinking cursor. I redid the DVD check and here I am. What the heck could this be? Is my harddrive failing?

08-23-2009, 09:50 AM	#2 (permalink)
Raddy13 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 187 OS: Windows 7/XP Pro SP3	Re: Win7Pro froze, now boot fails unless I use the DVD Go into your BIOS and double check the boot sequence of your devices...it seems like its trying to boot from something that has no boot information. Put your hard drive as number one priority and see if it boots into Windows on its own. __________________ ALWAYS back up your data!

08-23-2009, 01:00 PM	#4 (permalink)
Raddy13 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 187 OS: Windows 7/XP Pro SP3	Re: Win7Pro froze, now boot fails unless I use the DVD That could very well be the problem. Even when you have multiple partitions on the same hard drive, the Windows boot loader will still point your computer to the correct partition. If you originally installed it on the E: partition, your boot loader might still be a pointing to that partition, even if it's not still there. Something to try is to put in your Windows 7 DVD and go to the recovery console. Once you're there, type in the following commands (make SURE you type these in the C: path) pressing enter after each one: Code: C:\>fixboot C:\>fixmbr If the bootloader is still pointing to the E: partition, that should fix it. Let me know how it works out. __________________ ALWAYS back up your data!