Windows 7 Won't Boot and I Can't Restore It, Reinstall?

[Clive_Necessor]

Well this is interesting...

Thursday night I decided to run Defraggler because defragging your computer is cool, right? So I decided to defrag my whole HDD (with Windows on it). I left my computer on overnight because it said it would take more than a day to complete. The next morning, I checked on my computer to see how much progress it had made, and my desktop background was black (not my original background). I could move my mouse but couldn't click on anything. So I thought that that might be normal (hey, downloading new amd drivers crashed my computer, but in the end they still worked). When I got home from school that day, my computer was still frozen. I decided that there might be a problem. I turned off the computer with the power button, and restarted it. Then I got a screen telling me that Windows could not start, and thus I should put in my Windows installation cd, restart the computer, then click on "Repair your computer." It also said "Status: 0xc000000f" and "Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible." I restarted, booted to my CD drive, then clicked on Repair your computer. It took a while to load, but I eventually got to a screen. I came to a screen with two options: 1. Use restore tools on an os (Windows 7, partition size 0 Mb, Drive (D) or 2. Use a system image you created before. I had not created an image so i chose #1. It came up with five options: startup repair, system restore, system image recovery, windows memory diagnostic, and command prompt. Startup repair ran, finished, restarted my computer, but did not work. System restore resulted in an error about how there was no system to restore. I don't have a system image. The memory diagnostic worked, but didn't solve my problem. I can't use command prompt. The only thing left to do was reinstall Windows, but I can't do that without losing all my files. I tried booting up windows on another PC's HDD, but that had the same problem. I guess I could just bite the bullet and remove all my files, but is there anyother way? I have a Linux kernel on a USB flashdrive, I'm going to use that to see if I can backup any important files (I don't have any backups, shame on me). Help?
Also, what did I do wrong?

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Maybe The stress of running defrag damaged the hard drive

Or the hard drive was already damaged and defrag corrupted the system

To check the hard drive for physical damage you need some hard disk diagnostics
The Hirens boot cd contains a collection of diagnostic tools
The western digital data lifeguard for windows is included and tests most brands of hard drive

If the disk has no hardware faults you can use your Linux boot cd or usb to copy files off to a usb hard drive or usb memory stick

With Hirens cd you have a windows XP based PE system which can be used to see what partitions still exist and run chkdsk on the hard drive and use instead of the Linux system for recovering important data

If the hard drive is physically damaged then you are in the realm of data recovery and getting a new hard drive and re installing windows etc

What did you do wrong
Believe it is cool to run defrag on a modern hard drive unless you know it is in good condition both physically and logically
Fail to have a backup strategy

Not learnt to put a few blank lines or paragraphs in your report of you problems

Come back when you know if your problem is a bad hard disk or not
And you have tried to access your data which you had not backed up

If your data is really critical get this done by a professional or someone with practical experience of data recovery

Regards
Mike barnes

 

[Clive_Necessor]

Hi

Maybe The stress of running defrag damaged the hard drive

Or the hard drive was already damaged and defrag corrupted the system

To check the hard drive for physical damage you need some hard disk diagnostics
The Hirens boot cd contains a collection of diagnostic tools
The western digital data lifeguard for windows is included and tests most brands of hard drive

If the disk has no hardware faults you can use your Linux boot cd or usb to copy files off to a usb hard drive or usb memory stick

With Hirens cd you have a windows XP based PE system which can be used to see what partitions still exist and run chkdsk on the hard drive and use instead of the Linux system for recovering important data

If the hard drive is physically damaged then you are in the realm of data recovery and getting a new hard drive and re installing windows etc

What did you do wrong
Believe it is cool to run defrag on a modern hard drive unless you know it is in good condition both physically and logically
Fail to have a backup strategy

Not learnt to put a few blank lines or paragraphs in your report of you problems

Come back when you know if your problem is a bad hard disk or not
And you have tried to access your data which you had not backed up

If your data is really critical get this done by a professional or someone with practical experience of data recovery

Regards
Mike barnes

I tried to access the drive by hooking it up to a pc that worked, but I could not because the drive was not formatted properly. Windows attempted to format it, but failed.

I got Hiren's, and ran the Data Lifeguard, first using the quick test, which failed due to an error. I then used the full test, which failed due to "too many bad sectors."

Since nothing on the drive is important, I attempted to wipe it with both the lifeguard's write zeros function and Darik's Boot And Nuke. They both failed due to bad sectors.

Now the lifeguard won't detect my hdd.

I'm assuming that at this point it is beyond repair, but is there anything else I could try?

Thanks,
Clive