Windows 7 Ultimate refuses to start.
Windows 7 Ultimate refuses to start.
Hey there, this is my initial post—I'm sorry if it doesn't fit the right area. Over the past weeks, my computer began scanning the hard drive for issues every time I powered it on. Sometimes I allowed it to scan, other times I chose not to. Two days ago, when I turned it on, it refused to boot. It felt like the system was stuck in a loop: if I opened Windows normally, the hard drive would stop spinning, the blue screen appeared, and then it would restart. Using Windows Recovery, my keyboard and mouse stopped working, and after the repair process, the PC would restart again—but everything started from scratch. It asked whether I wanted to launch Windows normally or keep running the repair repeatedly.
I tried various methods in the F8 menu, switched to Command Prompt, and used other options (though I'm not sure why they failed). When I inserted the Windows CD, I connected a PS2 keyboard (the USB one) and found that the mouse stopped working when I entered setup. Selecting "Repair this PC" helped, but when I clicked the hard drive in Windows 7, it showed an error: the system recovery options didn<|pad|>. I have a backup of Windows, including an OS restore point from a few weeks ago on an external USB drive. However, when I tried to enter repair mode via the CD, the external HDD or DVD drive wasn't visible, possibly because the USB ports were disabled. I also couldn't locate drivers for my external HDD or DVD drive on the SATA hard drive.
In the Command Prompt, I attempted to restore Windows, but it insisted I select a recovery HDD first. If you have an USB drive with Ubuntu, would it be wise to back up your files there and format the hard drive? Any advice would be appreciated—I'm really confused about what to do next. Thanks for your help!
Windows 10 setup begins -> Repair stage -> Command prompt -> C: drive -> run chkdsk /f if not working: Ubuntu live USB -> remove files then: check disk info, verify HDD health.
It seems the system experienced a major crash. Likely safest to switch to Linux and reinstall the OS. Another option is downloading the latest recovery tools from Microsoft and burning them to a disc—could be effective or not.
I tried using the cmd method they recommended, but it didn’t work. I believe backing up the data from Ubuntu is necessary. Regarding transferring files, you can simply drag and drop them from the old to the new HDD, or you should perform a proper backup.