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Bottom of FormRepair your computer in Windows Vista or 7How to
use System Recovery Options for repairing Windows Vista or 7
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Stay safe!When Windows is not able to start even in Safe Mode, then
most probably there are some errors or missing files on your hard
disk that prevent Windows Vista or 7 from starting correctly.Repair
Your Computer is a set of tools for recovering from Windows such
errors and it is available on Windows installation DVD. Windows 7
users can also create a System Repair Disc, or borrow one from
friends - as long as the hardware architecture (32-bit/x86 or
64-bit/x64) matches.Here are some troubleshooting steps to try
before using Repair Your Computer: Last Known Good Configuration
often solves booting and stability problems after installing
software, drivers, or messing with Registry entries. Always boot to
Safe Mode at least once - this often repairs corrupted file system
and essential system files. If Windows is able to boot, use System
File Checker and icacls.exe to repair corrupted system files. While
Windows is running, use free WhoCrashed for determining BSOD (Blue
Screen Of Death) causes.Also, Reliability Monitor might reveal
faulty drivers or software. System Restore can help reverting back
to a state when your computer was running normally.Windows 7 user
might be able to launch Repair Your Computer or Startup Repair from
a hidden system partition. The two options are described later in
this article.You can also legally download Windows 7 (with Service
Pack 1) installation image from DigitalRiver and burn the contents
of ISO file to DVD with Windows 7 Disc Image Burner or
CDBurnerXP.The full list of editions and other languages is
available at
http://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/14-windows-7-direct-download-links:
Windows 7 Home Premium x86 (32-bit) Windows 7 Home Premium x64
(64-bit) Windows 7 Professional x86 Windows 7 Professional x64
Windows 7 Ultimate x86 Windows 7 Ultimate x64To put Windows Vista
or 7 installation media onto a bootable USB drive instead, see the
Create bootable Windows installation media on a USB stick guide on
my sister site, www.winhelp.info.If you do not have the disc (a
common case for computers that have Windows Vista or 7
pre-installed) and your friends do not have a matching one either,
you can use my Data Recovery CD/USB for fixing errors on disk or
repairing Master Boot Records (MBR), but other options of Repair
Your Computer are unavailable.Do not use Windows 7 DVD for
repairing Windows Vista installations, or vice versa! You can only
use the Command Prompt option on the disc to fix file system
errors.If you can borrow a correct Windows installation DVD from a
friend, make sure you get the right version: you can only use
32-bit Windows disc for repairing 32-bit Windows installations and
64-bit Windows disc for fixing 64-bit Windows installations!
Launching computer repair in Windows 7 without installation DVD or
System Repair DiscWindows 7 users can run Repair Your Computer or
Startup Repair from a special hidden partition on hard disk.1.
Launch Startup Repair offered at computer startupThe Launch Startup
Repair option is offered automatically after Windows 7 detects that
it failed to start the last time. If the failure happened just once
due to power failure during Windows startup, you can ignore the
offer by pressing Arrow Down key on your keyboard to select Start
Windows Normally instead and then pressing Enter key.Otherwise, you
should use Launch Startup Repair (recommended) option.
Move to Startup Repair section.2. Repair your computer in
Windows 7 Advanced Boot Options menuTo access the whole set of
recovery tools without using the Windows 7 installation DVD or
System Repair Disc, you need to open Advanced Boot Options menu
right before Windows 7 starts. After you power on your computer,
you might see some full-screen logo or black screen with gray texts
such as "AMI", "Intel", "Testing Memory", "Hard disk", etc. Press
F8 key on your keyboard repeatedly right after you see such screen
disappear. This will open Windows 7 Advanced Boot Options menu. If
you see the Select Boot Device menu instead, press Esc key to hide
it and then press F8 key again a few times.Use arrow keys on your
keyboard to select Repair Your Computer and press Enter key to
confirm your selection.
Read on for detailed instructions on using the tools.Launching
Repair Your Computer from Windows Vista or 7 DVD/System Repair
DiscIf your computer does not boot from DVD, read the Computer boot
order on how to change boot order.After you boot your computer
using Windows DVD or System Repair Disc, a black screen appears
with gray text "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD". Press some
key on your keyboard (Space and Enter are the most common ones )
within 5 seconds to launch Windows from the disc.
Windows will load some files from the disc, this takes time.
If using Windows Vista/7 installation DVD, Install Windows
dialog appears. Select your preferred settings from Time and
currency format and Keyboard or input method boxes. I suggest you
leave Language to "English" here to better understand this
article.If using Windows Vista/7 System Repair Disc, System
Recovery Options dialog appears instead. Here you can only select
the appropriate keyboard layout.Click Next to continue.
Windows installation media users will see a big tempting Install
now button. Do not click it! Click Repair your computer in the
lower left corner instead.System Repair Disc skips this step and
continues with looking for Windows installations.
Recovery environment will then look for present installation(s)
on hard disks. This might take up to a few minutes.
Click Next after the correct installation has been detected. If
you have multiple versions of Windows installed, click the one that
is broken.If you see nothing listed here, your computer has a disk
controller that Windows Vista or 7 is not able to detect by
default. Click Load drivers, insert the CD, floppy disk or DVD that
came with your computer or disk controller and load appropriate
drivers from there. Your Windows installation will then be
located.
If you have several user accounts on the computer, you might
have to log on using the account that has administrative rights.
Select an administrator's user name and enter the password.
System Recovery Options window then appears with the list of
available recovery tools. The tools are almost identically named in
Windows Vista and 7.
Let's see an overview of the tools next.Please note that if you
are using a wrong media here - e.g. Windows Vista installation DVD
on Windows 7 PC, or 32-bit version of System Repair Disc on 64-bit
Windows - you are able to use the Command Prompt option only. While
the other options are not disabled in the list, using these end
with error messages and might damage your broken Windows
installation even more.Step 1 - Startup Repair in Windows Vista or
7The very first option to try in case Windows is unable to boot is
the Startup Repair (see the two pictures above). Startup Repair
will check the condition of your hard disk and see if files needed
to launch Windows are present. The process takes several minutes to
half an hour.
If a problem is found, Startup Repair will try to fix it. This
usually takes a few minutes for minor problems, but sometimes the
repairs might last for up to half an hour.
In case problems were fixed successfully, Startup Repair offers
to restart your computer immediately to see if your Windows starts
normally now. Often it does!
In rare cases, Startup Repairs launches again automatically and
does some more fixing. Let it finish its job and Windows should
start normally after the next restart.In case Startup Repair was
unable to locate or repair problems, you will see one of the
following screens. You can click Finish to close Startup Repair and
then try some other method of restoring. Or you can click View
advanced options for system recovery and support to return to the
list of recovery tools.
After an unsuccessful repair of Windows 7, Startup Repair
suggests using System Restore for fixing your computer. If Startup
Repair was your first step in fixing Windows 7 problems, I suggest
you click Cancel here and try other recovery tools first.If you've
tried all other tools already, click Restore button. Please
remember that this System Restore operation cannot be undone -
while you will not lose your documents, e-mails, pictures, videos
and other personal data, some programs might be removed during the
operation. Read this tutorial about System Restore for detailed
instructions.
After clicking Cancel, Microsoft asks to send some information
about the problem to their servers to help creating solutions for
such situations. This will not send your personal information to
Microsoft, just data about your computer configuration and problems
not repaired.If you are really concerned about your privacy, click
Don't Send. If you would like to help Microsoft a bit, click Send
information about this problem (recommended).
Step 1.1 (optional) - use Command Prompt for fixing disk errors
and restoring missing system filesIf you do not have the correct
Windows installation/System Repair media, but you still need to
check for and fix errors on disks, click Command Prompt in the
list.
A black Command Prompt window opens on drive X. The X: is a
special temporary disk created entirely in the Random Access Memory
(RAM) of your PC. No hard disk space is used for this drive.First,
we need to locate the drive where Windows is installed. Most
probably this is a drive with letter C, D, E or F.Type echo list
volume | diskpart and press ENTER. This will display all
drives/volumes/partitions available. You need to use this command
to verify that no partition/volume is listed as having RAW file
system type.
Ignore all volumes that have CD-ROM for Type.The volume that has
"System Rese" (part of "System Reserved") written in Label column,
is the recovery partition, and it typically has drive letter C in
Ltr column. Such partitions are usually small in size - about 100
megabytes (MB). You should check this partition for errors,
too.Please note that not all computers have the recovery
partition.So, in the example above, the Windows 7 partition has
drive letter D (note the Ltr column). You can also use the Size
column for verifying that you have located the correct one. Do not
mix up megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB).To double-check the
Windows drive letter, type bcdedit | find /i "OSDEVICE" and press
Enter.This outputs something like osdevice partition=E: where the
very last letter is your Windows/system drive letter. It might be
some other letter in your case.
In case your Windows partition showed up as RAW in Fs (File
System) column, you still need to run chkdsk and take note of the
results. Normally, Windows partition should list "NTFS" in Fs
column.Now type chkdsk : /F /X and press Enter. Replace with the
letter of drive where Windows is installed (or the drive that has
files badly messed up), for example chkdsk d: /F /X or chkdsk c: /F
/X.This command will find and repair errors on the partition/volume
(the /F switch) and if required, unmount it first (the /X
switch).If you want to run a full disk check with recovering data
from unreadable clusters, use the chkdsk : /R /X command instead.
Note that the exhaustive test might take several hours to
complete.
The process might take quite a while (up to an hour without the
/R switch, and several hours with the /R switch). After it is
completed, verify that there is a line stating "Windows has checked
the file system and found no problems" in the report.If there were
errors on the volume, repeat the last command (press ARROW UP key
to recall the last command) until the no problems message
appears.Please check other partitions, especially the 100 MB
"System Rese" one for errors, too. If you have more than one hard
drive installed or more than two volumes/partitions, do not forget
to run disk check on these - this might solve your problems.If
Windows partition was listed as RAW in diskpart and you see the "A
disk read error occurred c0000185" message before chkdsk completes,
you need to either reseat or replace hard drive cable (turn off
your PC, disconnect power cord, then unplug and replug the SATA or
IDE cable both on motherboard side and hard drive/SSD side). If
your PC case is very dusty inside, clean it with compressed air
before reseating or replacing the cable.Another method that works
surprisingly often in this case, is resetting BIOS/UEFI to
defaults. Reboot your PC and press F1, F2, F10, F12 or DEL (aka
DELETE) key to get into BIOS/UEFI (the correct key is usually
displayed on screen first). On some computers you might have to
press ESC key to see options list. Then find and use the option
that is similar to "Restore defaults" or "Load defaults". Intel
motherboards have F9 key for this purpose.Please note that you
might encounter the "Windows failed to start, File: \Boot\BCD,
Status: 0xc000000f, Info: The Boot Configuration Data for your PC
is missing or contains errors" screen after resetting BIOS to
defaults. This can be easily fixed with bootrec as shown here.If
reseating/replacing SATA cable and resetting BIOS/UEFI to defaults
does not help, run Memtest86+ to verify that RAM modules are
working correctly. If a RAM module has errors, remove or replace
it.Ignore any failure messages about event log: this is because
event logs are not available in Recovery Environment.
After chkdsk repairs file system errors on all volumes, close
Command Prompt window and then click Restart in the System Recovery
Options menu and try starting Windows normally and see if the
problem has been solved. If no disk errors were found, read on.You
can also try restoring missing system files using the SFC (System
File Checker) tool. This is useful in cases where Windows boots up,
but all you see is black screen with mouse pointer and keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+Alt+Del does nothing.Type sfc /scannow and press
Enter. Let the scan finish, it will take about half an hour.If you
see the error message "There is a system repair pending which
requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again.",
use alternative command sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=D:\
(replace D:\ with the correct drive letter for your CD/DVD drive if
necessary).Close Command Prompt window and and click Restart button
to see if this helped to get your PC running correctly again.Step
1.2 (optional) - repair Boot Configuration Data with bootrecIf
Windows Vista or 7 BCD (Boot Configuration Data) becomes corrupt
after a crash, power outage or some other reason, you'll encounter
messages with error code 0xc000000e "A required device isn't
connected or can't be accessed", 0xc0000001 "A required device
isn't connected or can't be accessed" or 0xc000000f "The Boot
Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors" while
booting.Please note that Windows partition must be listed as NTFS
(or FAT/FAT32 in rare cases) in Fs column of echo list volume |
diskpart results, otherwise there is no point in running the
following commands. See how chkdsk results can sometimes reveal the
cause for Windows partition listed as RAW.Type the following
commands and press Enter after each one: bootrec /fixmbr bootrec
/fixboot bootrec /rebuildbcdIf you see a prompt to add one or more
detected Windows installations after the last command, press A and
then Enter on keyboard. This means that BCD has been fixed
successfully: close Command Prompt and restart your PC.But in many
cases, the bootrec /rebuildbcd command results in 0 total
identified Windows installations instead. The screenshot below
illustrates this situation:
To resolve this problem, you first need to locate the drive
where Windows Boot Manager resides. In Command Prompt window, type
bcdedit and press Enter. Locate the entry Windows Boot Manager
(usually the very first entry with identifier {bootmgr}) and see
the second line, device. In this example, the line reads
"partition=C:", meaning that Windows Boot Manager is on the
partition/volume with drive letter C. In many cases, the drive
letter might be something different.
Run the following commands in case your PC is in legacy boot
mode (uses BIOS, or is set to legacy boot). If necessary, replace
drive letter "C" with the previously detected drive letter in the
first two commands.If the first command fails with "Path not found"
error, your PC is not in legacy boot mode, or you used a wrong
drive letter. Do not worry, try the UEFI boot mode commands
instead, or double-check the drive letter from bcdedit output.
attrib C:\Boot\BCD -h -r -s (removes hidden, read-only and system
attributes from BCD folder) ren C:\Boot\BCD BCD.old (renames BCD
folder to BCD.old) bootrec /rebuildbcd (retries the rebuild)In case
your computer is in UEFI boot mode (the commands above resulted in
"The system cannot find the file specified" error), use the
following commands instead (replace drive letter "C", if
necessary): attrib C:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD -h -r -s (removes
hidden, read-only and system attributes from BCD folder) ren
C:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD BCD.old (renames BCD folder to BCD.old)
bootrec /rebuildbcd (retries the rebuild)Now, in the Add
installation to boot list line, type A and press Enter. The new BCD
is ready, close Command Prompt and restart your computer.
Step 2 - Windows Memory Diagnostic ToolIf Startup Repair did not
solve your problems, and you have not used free Memtest86+ for
checking if your computer's memory modules are fine, try Windows
Memory Diagnostic. This will ensure that Random Access Memory (RAM)
modules do not cause computer problems. A faulty module is the most
common reason for software crashes and lockups.Please note that
this check will take at least 30-40 minutes to complete.
Click Restart now and check for problems (recommended) in
Windows Memory Diagnostic dialog.
After your computer restarts, Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool
will launch automatically. The test will easily take 40 or minutes.
If your computer reboots or stops responding during the test, you
should replace memory modules in your computer. Consult the
computer reseller and the manual that came with your computer for
this.Check the Status column from time to time. If it says "No
problems have been detected yet", your computer's memory is working
fine.After the lengthy test is complete, your computer will
restart. In case the Status was "No problems..." before the
restart, you should boot from Windows DVD or System Repair Disc
again and return to Repair your computer tools.
In case Windows Memory Diagnostic detected problems in memory
modules, you should replace the faulty memory modules in your
computer as soon as possible - failing RAM module(s) can easily
recreate the problems and in the long run you will definitely
experience data loss! Consult the computer reseller or the manual
that came with your computer for replacement of memory modules.Do
not use your computer or try other recovery options until the
faulty memory modules have been replaced!Step 3 - System RestoreThe
next step is to try System Restore from System Recovery Options
menu. This works only while using the correct Windows installation
or System Repair disc. Using Windows 7 media on Windows Vista
installation (or vice versa) ends with an error message about no
available Restore Points.
Please note that this System Restore cannot be undone (but you
can still choose another Restore Point later). While you will not
lose any of your documents, pictures, videos, e-mails, etc, all
programs installed after the selected Restore Point will be
deleted. You will have to reinstall these.Read detailed
instructions on using System Restore.Step 4 - other optionsIn case
nothing helped, you must restore the disk image backup of your
computer. You do have a backup, don't you? If you are using Windows
Vista or 7 built-in backup, you can click Windows Complete PC
Restore or System Image Recovery in System Recovery Options menu
and try restoring a disk image backup. Detailed instructions on
Windows 7 System Image Recovery are available in this article. If
you are using free AOMEI Backupper, read this guide about restoring
disk image using bootable emergency media.EaseUS Todo Backup users
can follow the Restore disk image using EaseUS Todo Backup Free
tutorial.In case you do not have a backup, you can use my Data
Recovery CD/USB or Puppy Linux to copy your documents, pictures,
videos, music, etc to a flash drive or external hard disk. After
copying is complete, reinstall Windows and all programs, copy your
rescued files back to your computer and do start making regular
backups this time.