Repaired Partitions, Ran Start-up Repair, Still Getting Boot Errors

tyl8881

Reputable
Dec 10, 2014
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Sorry for the length of the post, but I’ve already taken extensive action and would prefer to skip past the suggestions to do things I’ve already done.

I have an HP desktop with a 1TB SATA WD hard drive running Windows 7. It was working fine and then the other day it would not boot saying that there was no bootable device. I tried switching SATA and power cords, but this did nothing. Afraid it was a full crash (despite there being no clicking sounds indicating it was a hardware failure) I took it out of the computer and had my friend mount it externally to his Linux rig. He did not try to boot from it but was able to copy all of my most important files without any issues and said the file system seemed completely intact and we were able to see all my folders and files. Due to this he suggested it was probably some issue with Windows.

I reinstalled in my system, hoping it would have miraculously healed itself, but it still went to the “no bootable device screen.” Windows 7 repair disks would not work stating that it was the wrong version (I tried this with several different discs and from a boot drive to no avail). I then booted Partition Wizard from flash. It too was able to see all my folders in the correct place in the file system. It appeared that my three partitions (OS, system, HP Recovery) all said “missing/deleted.” I ran the repair option as well as the repair MBR option several times and now all three partitions are again recognized.

After repairing the partitions when I booted the computer it would take me to a “Windows Boot Manager” screen stating that Windows failed to start and to run repair your computer. When I used the repair disk after this, it recognized the disk, so I assumed I was making some progress. The disk would not recognize the already installed OS so I used the command prompt to make sure that the partition with Windows was active, but it still did not recognize the OS. I then ran “Start-up Repair” 4-5 times, however, it continued to boot to the “Windows Boot Manager.” I ran the disk again and this time attempted to use the command prompt to run CHKDSK on C:\ (which, yes, is my HDD not a flash or CD drive), however, it would not run it claiming an I/O error. This seems to be most commonly a connection issue, which seems incorrect in my case as Partition Wizard could find all my files on the drive. At command prompt I then used “BOOTREC /FIXMBR,” “BOOTREC /FIXBOOT,” and “ BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD.” The first two commands worked fine and the third find 1 Windows installations but when I select to add it to the boot list I again get and I/O error. After running the BOOTREC commands when the computer starts it now goes to the “BOOTMGR is missing” press ctl+alt+del.

That’s where I’m at and am pretty much at my wit’s end with trying to fix this issues. Any suggestions of what I might try now?