Question Strange situation

[purple44heart22]

[Moderator edit to break up a solid paragraph of text.]


Hello. I have a computer with Windows 7 on it, which had an administrator password on it but I removed it and then installed some programs,

then I went into the bios and it was set to ATA in the bios but I tried to set it to AHCI and it wouldn't boot into Windows after that,

it kept giving me a blue screen, then the option to start Windows normally or "launch startup repair"

and I gave it "launch startup repair", but that didn't work either, I think it tried to repair it but I don't think it succeeded,

then I went into the bios again and changed from AHCI to ATA and it let me enter Windows on a new restart,

but now Windows asked me for the administrator password again even though I removed it

and all the programs I installed disappeared, as if they weren't there or I didn't install them,

it was practically from scratch, how do you explain this? What actually happened? Why did my installed programs disappear or how did they end up being deleted?

Why is it asking me for the same administrator password again if I removed it before this error, before changing those things in the bios, from ATA to AHCI? How do I return to the initial state again?

Or at least see what was deleted? Or how can I see what programs I had installed before? Or how can I recover my data, what disappeared? Or that I lost or were deleted after this incident?

Thanks a lot and sorry for my bad english!

 

[rgd1101]

sound like you have more than 1 storage or os on thesystem.

Or at least see what was deleted? Or how can I see what programs I had installed before? Or how can I recover my data, what disappeared? Or that I lost or were deleted after this incident?

we certainly don't. if you don't know what you have

 

[Math Geek]

the start-up repair most likely used an old restore point as a "last known good boot" effort. it did not fix your problem of getting windows to boot, but it did complete the process.

so when you got back into windows it was back where it was when the restore point was created. no idea when that was, but obviously long before you made the changes.

you lose whatever changes you made (including data created) when it moves back in time with the restore point. nothing you can do there.

only thing you can do really is copy any data from a back-up and start over with the program installation and so on as you did before.

 

[purple44heart22]

sound like you have more than 1 storage or os on thesystem.


we certainly don't. if you don't know what you have

Hello, no, only one hdd and only one windows 7 install on it 🙁

 

[purple44heart22]

the start-up repair most likely used an old restore point as a "last known good boot" effort. it did not fix your problem of getting windows to boot, but it did complete the process.

so when you got back into windows it was back where it was when the restore point was created. no idea when that was, but obviously long before you made the changes.

you lose whatever changes you made (including data created) when it moves back in time with the restore point. nothing you can do there.

only thing you can do really is copy any data from a back-up and start over with the program installation and so on as you did before.

Thank you for complex answer. My mistake was to change to Ahci 🙁 It wasn`t any error on windows, it was my mistake ... So yes, maybe it used and old restore point. But why did not create an restore point undo or with my last installed programs as well? What do you mean by "it did not fix your problem of getting windows to boot, but it did complete the process."? What can I do in this situation? What options do I have? What is the best solution to solve this problems? So nothing I can do about this overall? Or just about specific part, problem or entire situation, like recover data or just about restore point? Or what do you mean by "nothing you can do there."? I cant go back to previous restore point before this new one occur/happend? Or also I cant to do undo to this last/ present restore point? To restore to the other old previous one, before this in present? And, I dont think I have a back-up, I never did it, where shoud I check and see if I have a backup? How to do that? And if I dont have and not be able to find any backup? 🙁 Then what? What should I do then? And about reinstall these programs, I dont remember all the programs that I installed before, because took me a while, also dont remember as well from where I found it, because was an hard work to find programs compatible with windows 7. So to much to find and work, make them in a compatible way to be able to installed in safe envirement for and on windows 7 and I am not even sure that I remember what was all the programs, from where I had them or find it and if I am able to find them again on internet. Thanks a lot!

 

[Math Geek]

the start up repair is not as complex as what you can do from inside windows. it is able to use a restore point but not to create one. so that's what i mean is that the start-up repair was able to complete everything it tried to do (such as use the restore point), but that did not solve your problem of being unable to boot to windows. keep in mind it is not only an attempt at a restore point but also other things it will attempt to do to get windows booting. so there is an unknown list of changes made that no one can really know what they were.

but since it can not create a new restore point, which is something it could do if booted to windows, it is permanently set back to whatever time the restore point was created. factoring in the other changes it made trying to get windows to boot, and there is no way to get back to where you were before you made the BIOS change.

basically, you go back to using your pc as you used to and as you identify a needed program, you go back and reinstall it. if you never realize you need it, then that tells you it was not useful to you anyway and does not need to be installed again.

this is what back-ups are for, you should be saving your install files so you can easily reinstall as you need to. it's as important as keeping other data safe and backed-up as you go. most popular software has an archive of older versions should you need to use an old one for compatibility purposes. if you only have one hdd, then getting a second one or an external to save stuff to should be a top priority to ensure this does not happen again.

sadly you may have just learned a very valuable lesson the hard way. you're not the only one to suffer such loss without back-ups. there is nothing you can do to get it all back at this point. you just have to move forward and recreate as you go.

you didn't do anything wrong using start up repair, but knowing it can go wrong in many ways, you should have back-ups of important anything. that was your mistake really. we've all screwed our system totally in some fashion and had to start over. i've done it many many times but i am always prepared with disk images and data stores so it's only a small effort to get back to where i was.