Don said:
Hi,
I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on my machine. I tried using the 64 bit
version of Paragon Partition Manager 2010 to shrink the existing
partition and then add a second one to my second hard drive. It crapped
out after it rebooted my machine. It's boot loader was left so when I
start up my machine, it stops at the Paragon boot loader and then it
will start Windows after pressing the enter key. Can this be undone so
the Windows boot loader starts the system?
I tried using the repair option when booting from the Windows DVD, but I
get the following message "This version of System Recovery Options is
not compatible with the version you are trying to repair. Try using a
recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows".
Is there a way of fixing the boot process from within Windows, or
through some third party software?
Thanks
If you need a Win7 SP1 x86 or x64 disc, you can download
one from Digital River (a company that handles electronic
copies of Windows 7). These are the particular ones I was
interested in. The MD5SUM (checksum) makes a nice search
term you can use, to find links to the files.
32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium x86 SP1 (bootable) 2,563,039,232 bytes
MD5SUM = c5bb99b2f1a9e7a5b4fbc6e3eff70882
filename = X17-24208.iso
64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1 (bootable) 3,319,478,272 bytes
MD5SUM = 971843a457b6e0db0af61258cbe7256a
filename = X17-24209.iso
That's an English version.
When you use the MD5SUM in a search engine, you may be able to
find pages with information on it. For example, this doesn't
give download links, but it does give some idea just how many
different versions are available for worldwide usage. If I
was a Dutch person, perhaps I could find the filename
of a Dutch-specific version. Not everyone might find
the North American version I use, to be useful.
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/8717-Windows-7-ISO-Disc-Image-Utilities/page8
This page, shows some actual download links. The msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net
referenced in the links, is a seller of downloadable software. I've
bought software from Digital River in the past, with a credit card,
with no problems. Now, a lot of software, normally the Digital River
link given to a customer is "custom" and only for them (the
download link becomes invalid after 24 or 48 hours), but in this
case, Digital River leaves the links open. They could easily
secure them if they had to.
http://slickdeals.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-3939310.html
*******
Why download both discs ?
1) On my x64 laptop, I need the x64 SP1 disc, if I want to do a
repair install of the OS. The disc should match the level the
machine is at, which is Win7 SP1. The rules here, spell out
how well the disc has to match the OS. Doctoring the ei.cfg
file, makes it possible for the one disc, to support the
various versions of Windows. The files for Ultimate are on
the disc, as well as Premium. They're effectively "file sets"
that get turned on, for the right license key.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html
The x64 DVD can also be booted to access the Command Prompt,
for using tools that can make small repairs, like reload the MBR
sector if it gets damaged. The Command Prompt though, in this case,
will likely have a preference for 64 bit utilities. If something
in a third-party utility has a 16 bit component, it might not
run when I need it.
2) The x32 disc, is if I need a 32 bit version of the Command Prompt.
I was using that just yesterday, to run a third-party application
for making a backup of a possibly dead OS partition. I would
not be using the x32 disc for Repair Installs. I've effectively
downloaded a 2.5GB ISO file, just so I can get the equivalent
of a 32 bit 200MB recovery CD (Microsoft should just offer those,
separately). So the x32 disc does have its uses,
and I burned off a copy yesterday just to get a job done.
You would download and prepare the discs on a working computer,
then go back and try whatever you were trying to do again.
Things like bootrec and bootsect, are new to the latest OSes.
In the past, if you hosed your OS, perhaps you'd have learned to
use fixboot and fixmbr. There are usually pages around, which
give examples of options to use. The automated recovery procedures
offered by the discs, can also sorta figure out what to repair.
Note that, when your OS is damaged, it can take up to three
passes of the automated recovery the discs use, to perform
a repair. The first pass, might assume the MBR was damaged
(needed new boot code), or the partition boot sector (located
a few sectors from where C: starts), needed repair. If the
computer is not able to boot after that, on perhaps the third
attempt to boot, the software DVD may run a CHKDSK and scan
every sector on C: (takes time). They don't want that CHKDSK
thing to run, if the repairs needed are trivial. That's
why the response of the procedure changes, depending on how
many times you've tried to boot it. I've gone all the way through
this procedure, to find that C: was irretrievably damaged.
I was able to quickly restore, from a System Image made
only two days previous to that (lucky me!).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392#method1
In any case, the purpose of my post, is to point out that
if you've updated the computer to SP1 via Windows Update,
you *can* get copies of the official DVD for running all
possible repair operations. If you forgot to make the
Repair CD from the Windows 7 menu, or forgot to make
backups of C:, using another computer to acquire a set
of those discs, will give you more tools in your
repair arsenal.
Paul
