Boot Device error

[iamitp]

I am having the one of the worst pc problem i have faced.....
It all started with my pc restarting(it was a power failure) to show boot device failure, insert system disk, i tried everything, from unplugging usb devices to re inserting sata cables but to no avail, now when i try to reinstall windows the setup recognizes all my partitions but refuses to install into any of them, ubuntu only recognizes one of my hard disk and partition( i have 1 big 500 g hdd as 1 part, and 2 250 g hdds in raid 0). I tried booting from my bart pe created windows live cds but they dont detect any partitions what so ever, windows 7 dvd's repair utility can access my file structure when i browse for drivers, but it wont repair the problem, nor will it install.
Please Help!

 

[olg207]

Did you create any restore points before this occured? This is a very weird problem you seem to be having, do you know how old the hard drives are, could be a bad sector?
What you could try is doing a repair install? Part from that nothing else springs to mind!

 

[Thrax]

Either all your hard drives are bad, or your motherboard is bad. Statistically, the latter is the more likely of the two given that your PC suffered external power failure.

 

[iamitp]

hi, this is what i tried out, i plugged in a hdd with winxp in it, it booted up and showed up my partitions, but if i remove the hdd, i get the error.

 

[clifford_cooley]

There maybe a fix to this that I am not aware of. If it was mine I would see if I could use XP to re-partition the drive after I have all my data off. Then start all over with Win7 installs

 

[Ian]

You'll probably need to just back up any data that you can by using the XP HDD and then format the old drives and start again (if possible). There's no easy way to fix the problem if Windows 7 can't repair itself.

 

[iamitp]

well its gonna be hard to backup so much data......but thats what i'm doing, is there anyway to revive my old win7 on my raid array from the winxp im using now?

 

[Ian]

Have you tried the usual things like running CHKDSK on the broken drive?

 

[iamitp]

yep did that, i check fixing bad sectors too, it finished widout a prob.

 

[olg207]

Try running sfc /scannow in the recovery console, it might just repair any broken data, or missing files - its worth a try!

 

[iamitp]

tried it, but no didn't help. :- (

 

[catilley1092]

When you mentioned Ubuntu, it reminds me of problems. There may be the possibility (it happened to me) that the GRUB bootloader has infected your system. If it was me, I would do a full format and reinstall Windows 7 only. If you want to play with Linux, get a cheap used or refurbished laptop for it. Linux always makes itself priority over Windows, and among many other reasons, I ditched Linux. It's not worth the trouble to get a free "distro" with no commercial support. If you want Windows 7 to work properly, leave the Linux garbage elsewhere. And if you want Linux, then have a second system for it. No one could even pay me to install that garbage on my new PC. Good Luck to you, and I hope you get Win 7 going right.

 

[iamitp]

ya did exactly dat, helluva lotta trouble reformatting. but problem solved.