Windows 7 won't load

[nimdivino]

Hello,
I want to thank you all in advance for helping me out. I have a wedding photo project that I have to finish this week and I am sort of freaking out because Windows 7 is not loading and I can't figure out what's wrong.

I shut-down my computer for a whole week and I never had any issues until now. My BIOS is set-up to boot in CD-ROM first and then to a hard-drive. What's happening now is that it hangs-up in "Boot from CD/DVD" phase. Nothing is happening, no error, it just sits there.

Before this, there's a line that says "Verifying DMI Pool Data", I think that it passed through that because it tries to boot in CD/DVD ROM.

I changed the BIOS so it boots to my OS drive directly but still, nothing is happening after "Verifying DMI Pool Data".

I changed it back to boot in CD ROM and inserted the Windows 7 installation disk. The installation disk fired up and it got me to the "Install Windows 7 screen". I went through the menu's and I saw "load drivers for hard disk" and I am pleased to say that I can see all my hard drives and I can access them. My first impression is that the OS hard-drive is toast but it couldn't be right?

As a side note, I don't see any OS listed in the System Recovery options. Is this bad?

My motherboard is gigabyte EX58-UD3R

I checked BIOS and all my hard-drives are present. I have 4 hard drives total, 1 for OS, 2 for RAID (software) and 1 for back-up of that RAID.


Any ideas guys? I'd appreciate all your help!

Thank you!

 

[ryanrich83]

Try this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/windows-7-install-stuck-on-verifying-dmi-pool-data/25a50e90-5710-4d7c-85b6-1e906049ce6c

 

[nimdivino]

Hello,
Thanks for your response, I appreciate it a lot. I'm getting "Element Not Found" when I run "BOOTREC.EXE /FIXBOOT". I also noticed that "C" drive is "System Reserved" and the drive that contains my OS is actually in drive letter "G". Am I having a hard-disk problem?

Thank you!

 

[ryanrich83]

Possibly. Have you tried testing the drive? Usually an option for HDD test in BIOS.

 

[nimdivino]

I haven't done an HDD test in BIOS, didn't know BIOS has it and I've never seen it. I'll try to find it later.

 

[nimdivino]

I've been using diskpart for the last 2 hours and I can see all my partitions and all the hard-drives.

When I try to run the bootrec.exe /RebuildBCD, it says "Successfully scanned windows installations but when it says Add installation to Boot List and I select yes, I get an error "Element not Found".

Any ideas guys?

Thanks!

 

[nimdivino]

I also tried bootrec /fixboot and it says element not found

 

[ryanrich83]

Try this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/277945-bootmgr-not-found-bootrec-fixboot-displays-element-not-found.html

It suggests removing all HDDs except the one with the Windows 7 install, then trying the startup repair options from the installation disk. It ensures that the MBR that it is trying to repair is the right one.

 

[nimdivino]

Finally figured it out late last night.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/00f19d75-1e74-40ac-bdd7-94d17a17fa37

I used diskpart and made the "system reserved" partition of my OS drive to ACTIVE.

Now running bootrec /fixboot still gives me "Element not found" BUT the computer is booting now and that's what matters.

Thanks guys!