Hi chaps. I'm hoping that you can help me here. I posted this on the trail end of the 'Official Windows 7 Repository' thread, but I thought it might get better lime light if posted in a new thread. I need help with repairing my start up issues - section (6-H). I tried to crack windows, but it's come back to bite me in the arse. I restarted windows after using a boot loader. The computer now only loads as far as the loader menu? Anyway I get as far as an error message; "Chainloader /bootmgr Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format Press any key to continue" So I press any key. I'm then confronted with a red screen (Grub4dos 0.4.4) with many options. "Windows without loader" seems the best bet but this doesn't do anything. Non of the 9 options make the computer boot. I can go on to the "Grub Command Line", but I don't have a clue what I'm doing here! Am I fecked? New motherboard time? I hope that I haven't lost all the data on my hard drives! That'll teach me for playing! I've got windows 7 partitions if that helps. I have gone into the BIOS and told it to boot from a CD just as if I was installing Windows. It seems that it doesn't get time to do this and goes into it's problem state instead as mentioned above. Sorry for the cry for help first post, but I'd love to be able to use the computer again! David
Sounds like a very old loader with you mentioning a red grub screen. Boot with your Windows 7 DVD and select the repair options at the bottom left. Next up select command prompt and use the command bootsect.exe /nt60 SYS /force If you reboot the system it should get you into Windows. If it does then you're welcome to try my version of the loader (see signature) which may very well work around your issue.
Hi Daz, thanks for your reply. Booting from the Windows CD to repair my installation was my main game after reading instructions on here. My main problem is that I can't get the BIOS to boot from the Windows CD. I have selected the CD drive as the first bootable object (hell I even disabled the second and third options I got so wound up!), but yet it doesn't boot from it. I'm guessing that it should boot from the CD before it tries to load windows and my problem raises it's head? I'll have another bash tomorrow with a different keyboard as the one I'm using is a wireless jobby which I'm not 100% on as it is. Maybe this is my main problem as I Windows it with a wired keyboard just a few days ago!
When you boot from a Windows installer DVD, it always prompts "Press any key to boot from CD..." and gives a very short timeout. Either you didn't notice the prompt, or your monitor is slow to change resolutions, and as a result, doesn't bring up the screen in enough time for you to see. If you're sure that the BIOS boot order is correct, then the solution is to keep pressing a key when you're booting the PC.
Many wireless keyboards do not work on initial bootup. Thus, you can't get into the bios, select boot device, etc. Use a wired keyboard and try again.
I've swapped to a PS2 keyboard. I've entered the BIOS time and time again to check my settings. I still can't see the usual 'boot from CD prompt'. I'm setting it up with the same monitor I used to install Windows on it only last week. I received the boot from CD option then! Any other way to fix this?
This tells me your disk may not be bootable. Did you make it yourself? Or is it an actual ISO burned to DVD? If you copied the windows install files to the CD and burned them, you still have to make the DVD/CD bootable. EDIT: Oh, just saw your post above. So I guess the media is bootable. What motherboard are you using. There are usually setting to activate a boot menu. You can use this to get manual access to boot from the optical drives (or USB).
you could try pressing F11 or F12 while booting up, these sometimes give a boot menu so you can select cd/dvd
Don't you have another bootable cd like Erd commander , hiren's boot or Ubcd to try booting from cd? Can you boot from Usb? Try to boot from the bootmenu by pressing F8 (on Asus MB) or F12 (MSI).
my compaq uses ESC for the device boot menu on my older dells, cd will ONLY boot as a master drive... if it is slave, it won't boot at all
Hi folks. I'm back up and running now. It was the same DVD, just for some reason I never got the option. Anyway I won in the end. I disconnected the raid from the mobo and booted the pc, this fooled it into thinking I had no hard drives, so had to boot from the DVD drive as it had no other options. This then loaded up the windows DVD allowing me to install windows or repair. I then reconnected the discs and tried the repair method. But my hard drives weren't listed when I had to pick the install to repair. Fair enough I thought, I have only got to this menu because I fooled it into thinking I had no drives, so I went for a new install. Formatted the windows partition and reinstalled windows from there. I haven't really lost anything as windows was partitioned. It's on a new media centre build I'm using, with all of my music and DVD's being backed up on to it, so luckily all of that was saved! I used Daz's loader in the end. Thanks chaps, keep up the good work.
glad you got it working, but in the future, keep in mind that "hot swapping" (reconnecting) drives is a risky proposition if your hardware does not support it