Windows 7- Startup Repair does not work

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Nathan_F

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Nov 3, 2013
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I have a Win7-64 Laptop that experienced an error while trying to open an application. I tried to reboot and Windows looped through 3 to 4 sets of Startup Repair before it appeared to give up and take me to the System Recovery screen. The messages indicated bad "sectors" (I can't recall the exact verbiage and didn't take screen shots in my anger/dismay/depression.)

System Restore was an option under System Recovery, but the date was from 3 years ago. There was a message indicating that this would only restore windows and not any data... what exactly would this option do and should I choose it?

What other options should I consider? I can get another disk and clone it, but am I merely copying my issues to a newer drive?

I do not have Win7-64 media as this was not included with the laptop. I mention this as one course of action I researched indicated to install a new drive and then install the OS again. I would have to purchase a new OS to do this I believe.

Any advice/options would be appreciated.

Thank you!
 
Well, you can try cloning, (but it will probably crap out on the bad sector), but you will still need a repair disk. They are really handy to have, I recommend trying to get a copy of one. I have a small thumb drive with a bootable USB Windows Start up Repair disc on it. Do you have another computer? I believe anyone can create a startup repair disc, and they can be downloaded online. If you actually have a software that can clone the drive fine, and you actually have the clone, then you can use the startup repair disc.

can you get to safemode? is there a bluescreen when you try to start Nornally? We need more info on why it can't startup normally.
Sounds like the HDD is gone.
 
I do have another computer.

I had removed the drive to pull off a few files that were new since the last backup.

Here's what happens when trying to boot:
1) Startup repair starts immediately
2) Attempting repairs... Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete.
3) After 5 minutes or so, Restart to complete repairs.
4) Restarting goes back to Startup repair again.
5) Checking for errors takes a while
6) Then Startup cannot repair this problem

Opening up the diagnosis and repair details:
"Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem."

Then later:
"System volume on disk is corrupt"

This is the last message in the file.

This same sequence occurs when trying to boot into Safe Mode.

There is no blue screen.

I can get a new HDD by tomorrow, but will need help in what I need to do to fix things.

Thanks!
Nathan
 
Put it in the other computer and run a chkdsk with the parameter to fix bad sectors. See if that helps. If so replace the drive and salvage what you can. I had a client laptop have a similar thing happen. I was able to fix the bad sector temporarily enough that I could make a copy of the drive for virtualbox. Then I replaced the drive and was able to migrate data from the virtual machine.

Ps I am still using that drive for non essential data. It wasn't getting a bunch of bad sectors, but when you get them on certain windows data It seems correction can't fully happen without at least formatting. That being said, the cost of a new drive is worth peace of mind.
 
If you have another computer, throw the drive in and use CrystalDisk to check the drive. My money is on failing.

If the Drive is fine, use the other computer download a Windows 7 ISO and burn it to DVD/USB bootable and do a repair installation, shouldn't bother you with licensing, if I remember correctly.
 
Or, just clone the drive using Clonezilla.
 
I don't recommend cloning a disk with bad sectors.

Start it from scratch.
 
Most of the time, when you start a clone of a drive with bad sectors, it gets "stuck" on the bad sector, and never finishes... it just gets reading errors. In my experience. At work I clone HDDs to SSDs all the time, so there is little downtime for the end-user, and I'll know in about an hour if their drive is bad, it just sits, and nothing gets transferred.
 
Try this: http://www.puransoftware.com/DiskFresh.html

DiskFresh is a simple yet powerful tool that can refresh your hard disk signal without changing its data by reading and writing each sector and hence making your disk more reliable for storage. It also informs you if there are any damaged/bad sectors so you know the right time to replace your disk. The best part is, unlike other tools it does all this when Windows is running and it does not interfere with the speed of your work at all.
 
Warrior said:
Most of the time, when you start a clone of a drive with bad sectors, it gets "stuck" on the bad sector, and never finishes... it just gets reading errors. In my experience. At work I clone HDDs to SSDs all the time, so there is little downtime for the end-user, and I'll know in about an hour if their drive is bad, it just sits, and nothing gets transferred.
Click to expand...

That happened to me too, but once CHKDSK reallocated/fixed the sectors, I was able to image it.
 
>> I would have to purchase a new OS to do this I believe.

What brand of laptop is it?

You may just need to borrow/download a Windows 7/8 recovery disk for your brand.

This is a great time to go with a SSD drive rather than buy another spinner.
 
Spartacus said:
>> I would have to purchase a new OS to do this I believe.

What brand of laptop is it?

You may just need to borrow/download a Windows 7/8 recovery disk for your brand.

This is a great time to go with a SSD drive rather than buy another spinner.
Click to expand...

Agree, most laptops have the windows sticker on the back or under the battery. Of if it is a newer laptop then its built into the bios.
 
I ran chkdsk and it indicated there were no errors? See below.

I have a Recovery DVD for Windows7 Home Premium from the OEM (It's a Sager laptop.)

Next steps? Clone the drive anyway? Put the old one back in and try Windows Recovery? I have an equally sized drive (old is Crucial M4, 256, new is Samsung 850Pro 256).

______________________________________________________

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk /f f:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Windows.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...

485632 file records processed.

File verification completed.

1941 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...

587414 index entries processed.

Index verification completed.

0 unindexed files scanned.

0 unindexed files recovered.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.

50892 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...

34515960 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

249698303 KB total disk space.
191196568 KB in 432021 files.
241084 KB in 50893 indexes.
16 KB in bad sectors.
595171 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
57665464 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
62424575 total allocation units on disk.
14416366 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Windows\system32>
 
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