# Windows 7 Repair



## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

Long story short: 
8 weeks ago, GPU set on fire
6 weeks ago, received PC with replaced GPU; PSU exploded [whoops]
4 weeks ago, received PC with replaced PSU; would not boot
2 weeks ago, received PC with replaced CPU; would not boot
Yesterday, rebuilt PC with replaced MB+RAM; successfully boots BIOS, advances to Windows, system fails and shuts down

Startup Repair cannot fix this computer automatically - --
System Restore encounters error 'unspecified error 0x800700d8' - --
Windows 7 disk requires Windows 7 to be booted from HDD before repairing, which is impossible- --

I'm thinking it's the new motherboard, personally, but I'd really like suggestions of what to do. I am frustrated as all hell, and completely out of ideas.

I have a Windows 7 installation disk, I have a disk for the motherboard, and I have a modicum of understanding for computers, but this pushes it. What do?

I have not yet tried to clean-reinstall Windows yet, but I'd rather save that for later.


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## Onnes (Jul 2, 2011)

SIX said:


> I have not yet tried to clean-reinstall Windows yet, but I'd rather save that for later.



If you have another hard drive available, you could perform the clean install on it to see if the thing actually boots. You could also use one of those Linux recovery disks to simply test that the system is functioning before reinstalling Windows.


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## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

Unfortunately I don't have a Linux recovery disk. D:


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## Mallard (Jul 2, 2011)

Here are some things


 Run a chkdsk /f from the recovery console on the repair mode of the install disk
Press F8 as windows attempts to boot from the HD and choose Safe Mode
If all else fails, load recovery mode on the windows 7 disk and use the robocopy utility from the command line to copy everything you need back to a USB pen/external hardrive/whatever.
Clean installs are good.
If you need to talk through all this in detail, call me :B


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## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

Note that on advice from Mallard I attempted to boot an alternate OS on an external HDD and found that that failed to boot in the same way the Windows 7 failed from my internal HDD. Hardware incompatibility?


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## AshleyAshes (Jul 2, 2011)

Did you replace the motherboard with a different model?  IF so, that is your problem.  A new mobo, you'd might as well have put the HDD into an entirely different computer and expected it to boot.  Windows 7 installed itself with the drivers for the original mobo, it has no idea what to do about this entirely new chipset and stuff, so you need to do a fresh install so that Windows 7 will install all of the right drivers.


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## Mallard (Jul 2, 2011)

Yeah, pretty much what ashley said, didja get the linux disc yet bro? Backup and clean install, maannn


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## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

AshleyAshes said:


> Did you replace the motherboard with a different model?  IF so, that is your problem.  A new mobo, you'd might as well have put the HDD into an entirely different computer and expected it to boot.  Windows 7 installed itself with the drivers for the original mobo, it has no idea what to do about this entirely new chipset and stuff, so you need to do a fresh install so that Windows 7 will install all of the right drivers.


 


Mallard said:


> Yeah, pretty much what ashley said, didja get the linux disc yet bro? Backup and clean install, maannn


 
Thanks, this pretty much explains the whole thing. Much obliged - I'll backup, clean-install, and post if it works.


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## Runefox (Jul 2, 2011)

Ashes keeps ninja'ing these kinds of posts while I'm at work. :|


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## AshleyAshes (Jul 2, 2011)

Does Windows 7 have a 'Repair Installation' like XP did?  With XP, if you ran that, it ran like a fresh install, but preserved all settings, installs and stuff like that.  So you could swap the mobo, run a repair installation, then Windows just installed the base drivers it needed and left you to install the higher up drivers, everything else was preserved.  I dunno if Win7 has anything similar however.


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## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

AshleyAshes said:


> Does Windows 7 have a 'Repair Installation' like XP did?  With XP, if you ran that, it ran like a fresh install, but preserved all settings, installs and stuff like that.  So you could swap the mobo, run a repair installation, then Windows just installed the base drivers it needed and left you to install the higher up drivers, everything else was preserved.  I dunno if Win7 has anything similar however.


 
It does, actually. Unfortunately, to get to that point, I had to launch Windows _from_ the installation disk, which meant it couldn't repair and would have to clean-wipe. Were I able to launch from HDD and then run the setup, I could repair.


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## BRN (Jul 2, 2011)

Clean-reinstalled and now have a working PC. Thanks, guys~


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## Mallard (Jul 2, 2011)

SIX said:


> Clean-reinstalled and now have a working PC. Thanks, guys~


 BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 2, 2011)

Closed by OP request.


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