So booting the Win7 DVD and navigating to the System Recovery Options Console, I selected Command Prompt, and in my case doing a 'dir' down the alphabet to find at the moment my DVD drive is i:\ ..and so then entered: i:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 c: ..and got the message, iirc something like: boot repair was successful, updated on all targeted volumes... And then I rebooted, and 'Yes' it will now once again let me boot Win7, yea, but looking at the Activation it still shows 17 days left and so the loader stuff must not be installed properly, or something.....?
Hey untermensch, was 1.0.1.2 built after the problem Reefer86 and I had? As in, is this a new version that should be safe for him and me? If it's not, does it look like there will ever be a version that works for us? Best regards, and also a huge thanks for building this. It might not work for a few people, but it works for most, so thanks.
Okay Thank you. While in Win7 I tried ''bootinst /nt60 c:'' from d: and it said something like: (Updated NTFS filesystem bootcode. The update may be unreliable since the volume could not be locked during the update: Access is denied. I rebooted anyway but it still was not activated with 17 days left) So I booted the Win7 DVD again and from the recovery consoles command prompt to A:\ I ran ''bootinst /nt60 c" ...and here it said (Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes - but it also said something like the update may be unreliable since the volume could not be locked........ I removed DVD and rebooted to start Win7 but it would not boot up just like before and hung, then rebooted, ect... looping again. I went back to the DVD and ran i:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 c: and now I can boot in Win7 again - but it's still not activated. I'm not sure what else to do here. I'll check back in the morning, thanks
I'll try and help you as much I can on this one, untermensch.... My computer is an Acer Aspire 3100 with an Acer mobo. After running your loader (or any other loader I tried) there is a quick error message that's flashed, and then the computer restarts before I have time to read it. After it restarts and it's turning on again, it hangs right after the manufacturer logo and just says "verifying DMI pool." Your fix for that problem, using the DVD, worked, but all that it does is fix that "verifying DMI" problem and then it loads like normal, but unactivated. So whenever I run it, I get the "verifying DMI" hang, and then I use your method with the DVD to fix it and it boots like normal again, but that undoes what the loader has done. You obviously know more about this than I do. What do you think? Do you think we'll get a working loader anytime soon? Or perhaps another way to activate? Maybe we'll get a bios emulator finally?
Installed Win7 Ultimate w/o a key, and ran this -- then a window popped up saying it was activating Windows 7 Ultimate, about 30 seconds later it said it was done, and to click to reboot. I rebooted, and windows booted up pretty fast (not sure if I was supposed to see anything new during the boot process, but I didnt). Checked under system and it says its activated, did all the slmgr commands and they also confirm. My question is this. Is my system now 100% activated, to the point where I don't need to worry about it later on. I know I've read that some loaders can be detected by Microsoft, and I'm sure it's not something that can be speculate on now, but should I be good to go at least for awhile?
This happened to me on an older computer (Asus A8N-E board), no longer used, after installing W7 Beta. It was resolved by booting to BIOS setup, disabling the SATA controller, and rebooting.. The DMI hangup was gone. Then went to BIOS setup and re-enabled the SATA controller and the system now booted normally. This computer used IDE as the boot drive, other drives were SATA. Have no idea why, go figure, but the suspicion is a conflict with some BIOS code. My suggestion is to install the items manually. Copy the cert file, bootmgr and w7ldr to the boot (system) drive. In boot.ini add C:\w7ldr="Win7" Upon boot the system should display the boot.ini menu, Select Win7 hit enter. The computer should boot W7. After W7 boots, press winkey + break to bring up the main property page and check status at the bottom. If you don't have a boot.ini make one in note pad, it is a plain ASCII file. Example: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(11)\windows [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(14)\windows="Windows XP Prof on O" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /noexecute=alwaysoff /usepmtimer multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(8)\windows="XP Home on I AI7" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /usepmtimer C:\BOOTSECT.622="MS-DOS 6.22" /win95dos C:\linux.dos="PCLinuxOS2009" C:\grldr.mbr="Start GRUB" c:\w7ldr="win 7" Save as boot.ini to your boot drive c:\ Good luck
ps, experimenting with it all again this morning after restoring a fresh backup partition image of the Win7 install back to the time before the loader was installed, I then installed w7ldr_1.0.1.2 again in SafeMode this time in the chance hoping it would of worked, but the same thing happened upon reboot it would not come up to the Desktop, but instead hang and reboot. Pressing F8 and trying each one of the SafeMode start options to see if I could get more info, I found on when choosing the 'no reboot on error option' (something like that) it hung a little longer but still never came to desktop, and instead of rebooting it stopped on a blue screen that said something like: Windows 7 Stop C0000139 Entry Point Not found: The Procedure entry point ntserializeboot could not be located in the dynamic link library NTdll.dll.... That's all I came come up with for now. (...an off topic tidbit ...Anyone else notice when using the Windows7 F8 SafeMode screen when it comes up it shows "Choose Advanced Options for Microsoft Windows Vista" ....hey, Vista...? ...did they forget to change that to Windows 7 or what? ) Anyway, I again restored my backup partition image I made right after a fresh install of Win7, and that's what I use to keep imaging back to, which I've done dozens of times already since it only takes 3 minutes to re-image to fresh as compared to a 20 minutes fresh install process - this allowed me to try every single loader there is on a fresh install ...none of them work with this retail edition, although again all the earlier RC Release Candidates of Win7 worked fine with Orbits v4.0 loader ...go figure, no loaders will work for me with this 7600.16385 retail version.
Sorry, don't have a W7 only computer. Mine boot XP, vista, w7 using the System Commander boot manager so boot.ini is always there due to XP Are WXpro and W7 on the same machine, if so you should have a boot.ini. In this case it does not matter that W7 does not have boot.ini the XP boot.ini will do. The NTLDR should invoke boot.ini and allow selecting w7ldr. Take a look at easybcd. I use that to boot Linux from the W7 boot manager, BCD. Easybcd may allow booting from w7ldr, don't know, but I have used it to boot linux from the W7 boot manager. Need more detail on your computer setup to really answer
I use a little known about way to boot from one OS to the other. I use the old (benign) pqboot.exe from powerquest. I say benign because it does not in anyway modify or install anything anywhere, it uses it's own simple unique method to navigate across partitions. Yes I have WXP/Vista/Win7 installed on the same HD, and again they were each installed on a single partition with All 8 of the other partitions set Hidden at the time of install, the 3 OS partitions are set hidden until I boot to whichever one of them next, which auto unhides it and hides the one I just left. I did that to isolate themselves so that they would NOT install any of there bootloader or pagefile, etc, or any files from itself onto any other partition except for the one it was installed on, therefore, it did not install it's own proprietary loader on any of them either - I did that on purpose for the reasons stated. It allows me full control of swapping out timeforward/backward backup partition images of each OS without it affecting others partitions, since at the time of install they did not know each other existed. Anyway, most people have never heard of that, only the old timers who used powerquest products back then and knew pqboot it existed. For all intent and purpose so that it doesn't confuse anyone, to keep it simple I should actually just say I only have one OS installed and do not use a bootloader at all, and do not have one installed. My questions are not about a bootloader though, but how to get Win7 to work with untermensch, Orbits, Hazar, or any other loader, when installing Retail Win7 on a spare HD with no other partitions available (unallocated space) ... these loaders do not work with my MB/bios setup; however fwiw, on all the RC of Win 7 Orbits v4.0 loader did work. (fwiw, I noticed the other day hazar's experimental activationkiller.exe worked, but it's not a loader) Thank you.
untermensch- Your loader does not work for my friend here is his logfile: How to make your loader work on? please detail about that.
Have used PQ partitionmagic for years and remember pqboot. Tried it a few times but settled on System Commander for a boot manager. SC has it's faults but has served me well. Don't know what else to tell you, hope undermensh or Hazar can fix you up
untermensch- Does v1.0.1.3 will fix my friend problem without the need to assign drive letter manually? Does it fix "empty card readers reserve drive letters"? thank you.
untermensch my friend you continue to bring people here the best Your commitment is very much appreciated Alfa
I also tried your new version and changed around things in my bios just in case it would solve the problem, but it didn't. It almost loads to the Desktop but doesn't, hangs with that green bar loading animation that normally is not there, and reboots. In safe mode I see that it loads all the drivers, but right after it does, like before I hear the click of the HD spin down (it must go into sleep mode or something, and it reboots, only to loop that process. I maybe should of used that Safe Mode option to create a boot log since perhaps it will show something, but I didn't yet.
untermensch- your loader v1.0.1.3 iis now working for my friend. Any news about support for dynamic disks? thank you! your help and support here are greatly appreciated.
Yes HDTV4me you're right of course, and after I wrote that yesterday I realized I still had a boot loader on my OS's, but what I meant to say was that it only sees itself and so does not involve any other partitions. I absolutely need that to be the case. I also need the other two primary OS partitions to be set hidden when I am on the other OS's. Anyway, just wanted to tell I don't have time to try your stuff today since I've been playing all weekend on the computer and the wife is now after me to get some house chores done that I've been putting off, so I won't have time to get back to this till after work Monday or Tuesday. I'd rather not have to use a different loader than pqboot though. I'd have to change the other OS's and I don't want to mess with that because of the amount of software testing I do and the timeForward/Backward I do in re-imaging backup partition images, I need things to always be compatible with what I've done. I'll buy a dam real Win7 key then The Release Candidates worked with Orbits v4.0 version, why shouldn't a loader work with the Retail? Thank you HDTV4me for your last two posts, and your interest, I appreciate very much. Hey... I love HDTV too. I have a 57' Samsung LED and we love it, awesome! I can never go back to SD, or even LCD.