Windows 7 Recovery Help

[videodood]

Hi there. My Windows 7 64 didn't load up this morning. So I reached for the CD to do the Recovery Console, however, unknowingly I accidentaly stuck in the Windows XP CD and chose "Install on the existing partition"!

Well, I woke up before it completely installed Windows XP and rebooted with the Windows 7 CD, however, now my previous Windows 7 Installation isn't showing up in the recovery console.

Any advice here?

thanks,

james

 

[rolli59]

Re install windows 7! Read all messages on the screen before hitting any key's!

 

[JDFan]

Afraid the only choice is to Nuke the existing partition again and reinstall win7 -- hopefully you have backups of anything important (since anything on the partition would have been wiped at the start of the install of XP since that is what you told it to do !!)

 

[videodood]

No files are wiped at all is what I'm saying. I told it to install on the existing partition without altering it. Files are all there. Just the windows 7 installation doesn't show up when I load the recovery console.

 

[rolli59]

If it does not show XP overwrote it!

 

[videodood]

I just imagine maybe the boot.inf file maybe need to be altered or edited, so it possibly shows up when the console scans for existing win 7 installations.

 

[nikorr]

Well, did u select the install with format?

If yes, it is gone and clean install is in order.

 

[JDFan]

Well, did u select the install with format?

If yes, it is gone and clean install is in order.

IIRC the only way to go from 7 to XP or XP to 7 was a clean install with format only VISTA was able to do an actual Upgrade install !!

 

[nikorr]

IIRC the only way to go from 7 to XP or XP to 7 was a clean install with format only VISTA was able to do an actual Upgrade install !!

Well, he knows that's what he did, so clean install is whats left for him : )

 

[videodood]

To give an update as to what happened. I've been off line for a while with our move to a new house:


As it turns out my relatively new Western Digital 1 TB HD suddenly died. Took me 2 days to figure it out.

When I was actually re-installing and got the XP Installation mixed it up, I discovered it was installing on my second HD and not my main one, the 1 TB HD.

So I unplugged the smaller second one and spent a number of days casually trying to reload windows etc, but computer was freezing.

I think yanked out the drive, connected to my other Windows 7 Comp and realized the drive was virtually dead. It was detected by windows but shown to be corrupt. I use "GetDataBack" to recover lost files. But I still haven't replaced the Hard Drive and I don't wanna send the broken one back as an RMA because my files are still on it, but I just have no where to put them? I better snag a 2 TB drive, but they are more pricey than I thought.

Where's the cheapest place to buy HD's these days?

 

[rolli59]

No where unless you happen to find old stock at the usual suspects like Best buy, office depot, Stables and so on. Because flooding in Thailand created a shortage on the market causing the price to go up by 200%. $50 drive in October now costs $150!