Unable to boot after MSCONFIG changed to diagnostic startup

[hedodoc]

Windows 7 Pro 64 bit ASSUS Hero VII motherboard 250GB SSD drives for OS in RAID 1 Mirror. I was having very slow boot times so changed to diagnostic startup and just as I hit "enter' remembered a problem before. Windows now boots with the colored logo but then goes to dark screen with just mouse cursor and will not boot further.

I've tried repair, but Windows says no problems found. Tried restore from several points, but no luck (says can't read some file and suggests turning off virus checker, which is not running). I've booted to command prompt using repair disk looking for MSCONFIG.EXE but cannot find it anywhere in the Windows subfolders (most say look in windows/system32; it's not there). I was hoping to run msconfig manually and try to reset, but cannot find it.

I've guessing a critical service or driver is not loading, which is preventing windows from booting. I wonder if the RAID has something to do with this but only speculating.

Only the OS is on my C: drive, all data and programs other than windows on my D drive, so I can reinstall the OS and get back my data, but it's just a PITA to do that (again!). I had a great deal of difficulty getting this system stable (it was a build) due to frequent BSOD so hate to re-install the OS and risk that again, but if I have to.

Anyone know how to "reset" MSCONFIG boot options when one cannot boot into windows? I did reset the MBR but still no go.

I should add I cannot boot into safe mode either. Same problem.

 

[wpgwpg]

If this happened to me, I'd restore from my latest full system backup. If you don't have one, I'd consider this a learning experience. If you're booting to a command prompt and not seeing MSCONFIG in c:\windows\system32, it's probably because it's marked hidden and you haven't changed your options to show hidden files. Try navigating to that folder and typing MSCONFIG and see what happens.

Good luck.

 

[hedodoc]

If this happened to me, I'd restore from my latest full system backup. If you don't have one, I'd consider this a learning experience. If you're booting to a command prompt and not seeing MSCONFIG in c:\windows\system32, it's probably because it's marked hidden and you haven't changed your options to show hidden files. Try navigating to that folder and typing MSCONFIG and see what happens.

Good luck.

I do have all important data backed up! No problem there.

Actually, I did find MSCONFIG last night right where it should be. Either I just missed it previously or something else strange going on. I tried running it but I need an elevated command prompt to do that. Now, if I could get windows to boot, that would be no problem. Apparently the command prompt one gets to from the repair disc is NOT elevated and I could not find a solution to get an elevated command prompt from a regular prompt. All the "solutions" asked for an administrator password, but I don't have my user password protected, so there is no password to enter.

I simply re-installed Windows and everything is running fine. Sure, it's a bit of a pain to get all the programs running again but it only takes a bit of time. I've never had any luck trying to re-image my machine as Windows failed every time I previously tried that. Some problem with the image it kept saying. I've tried 3rd party back-up programs as well and very little luck there either so I have just given up on imaging my drive.

I routinely back up my important data to a outboard drive on my LAN with 2 large discs in a RAID 1 configuration. I haven't lost anything important yet!! But I'm sure it will happen!

So bottom line is I have no idea what happened when I changed the boot in the manner I did, but it's a moot point now.