- Apr 20, 2015
- 248
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- 10,710
The following is just a brief account of my near descent into madness........the actual question is at the end! 
I left my PC sitting on after work on Saturday. Came back to find it on the " startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically". I have no idea how it the system got from sitting idle to this state. . . . The ID signature was telling me it was a corrupted file to blame and W7 was telling me to unplug whatever hardware I had recently plugged in eg a camera/ MP3 player BUT I had nothing plugged in except Keyboard and mouse......
Spent the WHOLE day yesterday trying to get past the Startup repair loop and access the OS. But EVERYTHING I tried the door slammed shut in my face. No amount of command prompting would get me past the startup repair loop. The system said there were NO restore points! ( which is weird!). I could boot in any sort of safe mode, last known good config didn't work either. inserted my repair / install disk and was greeted with something like " The recovery options on this disk are not compatible with this version of windows"....... WHAT???? That's a new one!
So the only available option to me was to re-install W7 again. THIS ALSO BECAME A NIGHTMARE.
"A cd/DVD device driver is missing"............
I have dealt with this one before, being someone who doesn't usually install optical drives in my build. Yesterday I was armed with both a bootable USB stick AND the install DVD itself.....
AGAIN NOTHING would get me past this cd/ DVD device driver error! No amount of switcing USB ports ( usually worked in the past) restarting the PC/ changing USB settings in BIOS would get me past this error! Not to mention the remembering to faff around in the BIOS with Compatibility support module, disabling secure boot and enabling legacy support etc, all of which I had forgotten about from my first time building this system.
So I found a rather useful guide online on how to tackle the " CD/Dvd device driver is missing" problem head on. This involved adding to my bootable USB stick the necessary USB drivers that windows was moaning about being missing. Downloaded software which done this for me and took about 10 minutes tops.
Booted from this modified bootable USB stick and BAMM! No cd/dvd device driver error! Yay!
Windows 7 loaded up in about 7 minutes
Yay!! ...........wait.........why are NONE of my USB ports working? ? ? Why is my ethernet port not working? ?
So I can't get online to update the driver for my USB ports to get them working either. I can't use the mobo support Dvd as I have no optical drive bar the little external one.... Hmmm
Solution? = popped in a spare HDD to my other desktop, downloaded the LAN driver for my Mobo, then swapped this drive back to the other PC, installed the LAN driver and........ Internet! And everything from here was fine.......?
Nope. Windows wouldn't accept my product key... I will phone them today and explain and hopefully get another gratis.
Would windows update work? ? Nope...... just hung for about 3 hours searching for updates....... I have since fixed this using Windows update system update readiness tool .
So I have my windows 7 installed on my M.2 drive. My question is can I clone this drive to a Sata drive /SSD? Has anybody done this? If so what tools/ software do I need? Thanks!
I left my PC sitting on after work on Saturday. Came back to find it on the " startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically". I have no idea how it the system got from sitting idle to this state. . . . The ID signature was telling me it was a corrupted file to blame and W7 was telling me to unplug whatever hardware I had recently plugged in eg a camera/ MP3 player BUT I had nothing plugged in except Keyboard and mouse......
Spent the WHOLE day yesterday trying to get past the Startup repair loop and access the OS. But EVERYTHING I tried the door slammed shut in my face. No amount of command prompting would get me past the startup repair loop. The system said there were NO restore points! ( which is weird!). I could boot in any sort of safe mode, last known good config didn't work either. inserted my repair / install disk and was greeted with something like " The recovery options on this disk are not compatible with this version of windows"....... WHAT???? That's a new one!
So the only available option to me was to re-install W7 again. THIS ALSO BECAME A NIGHTMARE.
"A cd/DVD device driver is missing"............
I have dealt with this one before, being someone who doesn't usually install optical drives in my build. Yesterday I was armed with both a bootable USB stick AND the install DVD itself.....
AGAIN NOTHING would get me past this cd/ DVD device driver error! No amount of switcing USB ports ( usually worked in the past) restarting the PC/ changing USB settings in BIOS would get me past this error! Not to mention the remembering to faff around in the BIOS with Compatibility support module, disabling secure boot and enabling legacy support etc, all of which I had forgotten about from my first time building this system.
So I found a rather useful guide online on how to tackle the " CD/Dvd device driver is missing" problem head on. This involved adding to my bootable USB stick the necessary USB drivers that windows was moaning about being missing. Downloaded software which done this for me and took about 10 minutes tops.
Booted from this modified bootable USB stick and BAMM! No cd/dvd device driver error! Yay!
Windows 7 loaded up in about 7 minutes
Yay!! ...........wait.........why are NONE of my USB ports working? ? ? Why is my ethernet port not working? ?
So I can't get online to update the driver for my USB ports to get them working either. I can't use the mobo support Dvd as I have no optical drive bar the little external one.... Hmmm
Solution? = popped in a spare HDD to my other desktop, downloaded the LAN driver for my Mobo, then swapped this drive back to the other PC, installed the LAN driver and........ Internet! And everything from here was fine.......?
Nope. Windows wouldn't accept my product key... I will phone them today and explain and hopefully get another gratis.
Would windows update work? ? Nope...... just hung for about 3 hours searching for updates....... I have since fixed this using Windows update system update readiness tool .
So I have my windows 7 installed on my M.2 drive. My question is can I clone this drive to a Sata drive /SSD? Has anybody done this? If so what tools/ software do I need? Thanks!
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