Startup Repair in a loop?

[Kenny]

Last night I attached an external HDD to move files to and from PC, then
defragged it using Defraggler.
While I was at it decided also to defrag an internal IDE HDD and a storage
partition on the main SATA HDD but not the C: partition where the OS is.
No problems then and PC worked OK afterwards.
Shut it down but when I started up this morning it came up with Startup
Repair, went through that and told me the problem couldn't be repaired.
Advanced gave me the option of System Recovery, tried that and was told no
restore points set. I had thought that Restore points were set
automatically but it seems not.
F8 sometimes gives me Safe Mode, other times it gives me something called
GRUB4DOS and I am lost there.
Last Known Good didn't work.
Question is can I use the Win 7 DVD to do a Repair and is it
straightforward?
I copied down the Startup Repair result if it helps identify the problem.

Startup Repair
Problem Signature
Problem Event Name Startup Repair Offline
Problem signature 01: 6.1.7600.1635
Problem signature 02: 6.1.7600.1635
Problem signature 03: Unknown
Problem signature 04: 2120808
Problem signature 05: AutoFailover
Problem signature 06: 5
Problem signature 07: Corrupt file
Locale ID 1033

Any suggestions or advice appreciated, I have UBCD 4 & UBCD 5 so I can sart
the PC outside of Windows but I wouldn't have a clue what to do then

 

[Parko]

F8 sometimes gives me Safe Mode, other times it gives me something
called GRUB4DOS and I am lost there.

Grub4dos is a bootloader, some applications like TrueCrypt use it. How
it got onto your system is something only you will know. My thoughts
would be to repair the gooly bits in the Win7 bootloader etc. Fairly
straight forward if you follow these instructions carefully.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

 

[Kenny]

Starting from UBCD have seen that drive letters are wrong, Windows is on E;
and it should be C; so it seems it's trying to boot from the wrong
partition.
Tried renaming E: to C; but it renames it to (E)C:
Googling this it seems that others have had similar after attaching an
external device like an Ipod or phone but there was no clear answer except
reformat and reinstall.
Seems like this is a bug in WIn 7.
Any way of fixing the partition table, none of the tools in UBCD can do it?

Kenny

 

[SC Tom]

Not entirely unusual when booting from UBCD.
I'd follow the suggestion that Parko made and read
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392
--
SC Tom
-There's no such thing as TMI when asking for tech support.

Starting from UBCD have seen that drive letters are wrong, Windows is on
E; and it should be C; so it seems it's trying to boot from the wrong
partition.
Tried renaming E: to C; but it renames it to (E)C:
Googling this it seems that others have had similar after attaching an
external device like an Ipod or phone but there was no clear answer except
reformat and reinstall.
Seems like this is a bug in WIn 7.
Any way of fixing the partition table, none of the tools in UBCD can do
it?

Kenny

 

[Kenny]

Last post was sent before I saw Parko's reply.
Looking at that MS article about bootrec at Step 4 "Repair your computer"
and Step 5 "click the operating system...." there is no OS there to select.
Further down at Bootrec.exe options it gives a number of options, switches
etc run from within the Windows Recovery Environment.
Would these same options work from a command promt within UBCD environment
or would the bootrec.exe tool even be there?

Kenny

Not entirely unusual when booting from UBCD.
I'd follow the suggestion that Parko made and read
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

 

[SC Tom]

No, you need to boot from a Win7 DVD. If you don't have one, maybe you could
borrow one from a friend?

 

[Kenny]

I am booting from a Win 7 DVD but I can't use the Repair option when it
doesn't se the existing Win 7 installation to repair.

Kenny

 

[Paul]

I am booting from a Win 7 DVD but I can't use the Repair option when it
doesn't se the existing Win 7 installation to repair.

Kenny

Have you tried selecting the "Command Prompt" option ? You don't log
into a partition when doing that. You can run bootrec from the command prompt.
It would also help, if you can change directory to C: and do a "dir"
command, just to prove you can see the disk, and it is accessible at
a drive letter.

System Recovery Options

Startup Repair
System Restore
Windows Complete PC Restore
Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool
Command Prompt <----

HTH,
Paul

 

[Kenny]

Too fed up with it at the minute, will try again tomorrow,

Kennt

 

[croy]

Last night I attached an external HDD to move files to and from PC, then
defragged it using Defraggler.
While I was at it decided also to defrag an internal IDE HDD and a storage
partition on the main SATA HDD but not the C: partition where the OS is.
No problems then and PC worked OK afterwards.
Shut it down but when I started up this morning it came up with Startup
Repair, went through that and told me the problem couldn't be repaired.

Are you saying that a black screen came up with something
about Windows could not start, and instructed you to run
Repair from the Windows 7 Installation DVD?

If so, I've found that whenever that happens on my computer,
I just hit the enter key to reboot the machine, and then
windows loads without problem. I don't know why it happens,
or why it works to reboot, but it has worked many times now.

 

[Kenny]

Gave up and reinstalled Win 7 clean. Only thing is I'm now a bit scared of
using external HDD, Ipod or similar!

Kenny

 

[Char Jackson]

Gave up and reinstalled Win 7 clean. Only thing is I'm now a bit scared of
using external HDD, Ipod or similar!

Your fear is unfortunate. There's a lot of convenience wrapped up in
those externally connected devices.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Your fear is unfortunate. There's a lot of convenience wrapped up in
those externally connected devices.

I'd be lost without them.

iPod, backup drives, cellphone, etc.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Are you saying that a black screen came up with something
about Windows could not start, and instructed you to run
Repair from the Windows 7 Installation DVD?

If so, I've found that whenever that happens on my computer,
I just hit the enter key to reboot the machine, and then
windows loads without problem. I don't know why it happens,
or why it works to reboot, but it has worked many times now.

I have had Windows run a very long (over a half hour) repair job, then
indicate that it had failed, the do it again on the next boot, but
succeed that time.

The other times weren't as bad, but it still can be *very* scary.