Comments on: Windows 7 Error Recovery is a punch in the nuts for techies

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:02:15 +0000

Problem fixed.

I figured since it was stopping at disk.sys that maybe I had knocked a sata cable loose. So I opened the machine and disconnected and reconnected the hard drive and now error recovery works and now my computer works.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:35:34 +0000

I installed a blu-ray drive and everything worked just fine. The next day I rearranged my room, so disconnected all USB devices, power cords, etc, moved it across the room and reconnected everything. Now when I turn it on the error recovery prompt comes up.

HERE is the problem: When I go to repair, it stops working at the “windows is loading files screen”.

When I try safe mode it also stops while loading windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys

No idea where to go from here.

By: Dennis McMillan

Dennis McMillan — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:24:52 +0000

Try this One, I,ve figured it out! BUT do MS have anything on it????

My Beta version worked with NO problems NOW that I have got the New version in it,s Upgrade mode I have Two problems!

1 > Hangup city foolling around with game !!! and Buzzzz, lockup and sometimes it just locks up,looking at the errors!

I find a bunch of CDrom Error 11 at the time of crash! sometimes Hard drive Error 11 also. I get sound problems in Sound I lose Center/Subwoofer and Side speakers in realtek HD sound system on my Motherboard,yet it worked fine in the beta.

what the HELL is going on here,Beta worked fine .new version Crashes WHY! no reason for it! FIX IT pronto!

Cheers And to all Merry XMAS and a happy new year

Dennis

By: чимчим

чимчим — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:51:37 +0000

Просто отлично! На самом деле любопытно написано. :)

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:30:47 +0000

it’s all like it wasd before.. my w7 also crashed – when starting up press Space Bar or Hit F8
both of them will bring up the Startmenu with the regular boot choices…

the third way to get in to safe mode just hit and hold the CTRL key while booting up..

this has never changed on MS Windows Systems

hth

By: lildudespider

lildudespider — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:07:04 +0000

I agree with what rafael said, as i have started to use windows 7 myself, the operationg system is made to be as simple as possible for every user

however some useres liek rafael liek to contro levery aspect of their operatign system, to fix this you shouldent post on your website, you should forward the option directly to microsoft. the operating system is still in beta for an estimated half year, and changes can still be made, you can be the difference

By: Startup Repair in Windows 7 ~ IT Professionals

Startup Repair in Windows 7 ~ IT Professionals — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:27:14 +0000

[...] to this take on the repair tool, one user is finding it to be more of a hindrance than a help. Apparently knowing how to get to [...]

By: akash3656

akash3656 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:53:13 +0000

RAFEEL GO HERE: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/12/11/press-space-bar-to-quick-access-windows-boot-manager/

I haven’t tested this out because I’m having a windows 7 6956 WITHOUT the recovery tool.
IMO, I think the recovery tool is good tool Microsoft made for average computer people(read: noobs)
BTW, these “recovery tools” came with vista on some OEMs like Dell.
LIKE I SAID I DID NOT TEST THIS OUT….

By: Emir

Emir — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:24:52 +0000

Vista’s fix on the bootloader overwrote 7’s.

By: Emir

Emir — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 12:20:35 +0000

My bootloader of 7 broke, so I had to place my Windows Vista DVD in my computer and asked it to repair the damaged bootloader.

Then, I noticed that the Recovery Options were no longer available. Is there a fix for this?

By: Edootjuh

Edootjuh — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:35:21 +0000

I noticed there is a recoveryenabled entry in BCDEDIT for Windows 7 entries. Could it be that if you set this to no, it won’t do this?

By: Divyanshu

Divyanshu — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:50:45 +0000

All the best!

and plz publish it here once ur done :)

By: Nabeel

Nabeel — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:55:40 +0000

Where’s safe mode??

By: Neil

Neil — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:40:29 +0000

Neowin now has an article on the “bootscreen” of build 695X, and people are going crazy over it, they have already had over 5000 views of the article ( including two from me as well ). If this hysterya continues on the same way just imagine what will happen when and if Microsoft release a public beta of it !!

By: Thunderbuck

Thunderbuck — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:12:58 +0000

Wonder if Recovery Console can be installed…

By: Run Windows 7 from an external USB harddisk

Run Windows 7 from an external USB harddisk — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:45:55 +0000

I also found several troubles when installing Windows 7 to run from an external USB drive:

http://runwin7fromusb.blogspot.com

By: DiDo FRGT/10

DiDo FRGT/10 — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:45:08 +0000

without the need*

By: DiDo FRGT/10

DiDo FRGT/10 — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:44:21 +0000

lol! Does that last pic means what I think it means?

Anyway, I think Microsoft is trying to help end users resolve their system problems with the need of an expert, hope I’m not stating the obvious, though I’m sure they’ll bring back the other options in future versions.

btw, I’m using that Norton Antivirus Gaming Edition you posted eariler, surprisingly it doesn’t overkill the system, though the activation messages are annoying. Just thought you should know.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:16:38 +0000

F5 might also being up the alternate boot menu. It USED to be different from F8 but I think nowadays (XP/Vista) they do the same thing. Who knows, it’s worth a try though.

JRB’s suggestion also sounds helpful.

You could also try booting from a BartPE (or a Windows PE with regedit on it), mounting the SYSTEM registry hive, and replacing the “CurrentControlSet” key with one of the “ControlSetXXX” keys (I assume lower numbers are older). I believe this is essencially what LKGC does (probably uses the most recent).

By: JRB

JRB — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:18:42 +0000

If you select “Start Windows Normally” you can press F8 and bring up the normal boot menu… Just like in vista.

By: JonLaslow

JonLaslow — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:09:05 +0000

@Rafael: In Vista, the use of Startup Repair is governed by a file called ‘bootstat.dat’ in the %windir% directory. The only processes (that I’m aware of, anyways) that write to it are winload.exe (setting the value ‘LASTBOOTSUCEEDED’ to ‘FALSE’), and the Service Control Manager, setting the same value to ‘TRUE’. As such, if the boot process is interrupted after winload.exe is run and before SCM kicks in, the value is left at false Start Repair is called on boot (if WinRE is installed on the hard drive – if not, it’s called when you try to load WinRE).

If you’re feeling brave, and if this file is present in Windows 7, you could attempt to deny access to the ‘bootstat.dat’ file and see that will prevent the value from being changed and Startup Repair from being called. No idea if it would work, but maybe something to go on in lieu of a proper workaround or an actual change by Microsoft.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:10:36 +0000

@All: As JonLaslow pointed out, the point of my post was to highlight the fact I had *no choice* but to use the wizard, which forced me to use System Restore, which in the real world, could cause data loss. Maybe I should have blogged about how when your machine crashes, you can’t even get into safe mode…?

By: JonLaslow

JonLaslow — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:17:18 +0000

@AndyB: It would be nice if they left the screen as-is, however still provided the option to “Press F8 to return to the Startup Options menu”, or some such thing in the bottom gray bar. Normal users are still defaulted to the best option for them, but power users can still play around with the various other ‘legacy’ options that we all know and (mostly) love.

By: AndyB

AndyB — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:49:10 +0000

Could you imagine being an end-user and having to choose between…

Your System Failed to start-up would you like to…
“Go back to Last Known Good Configuration” OR “System Restore”?

I’ve been programming for 12+ years and even I wouldn’t know which one to use i given the choice (until I saw Bryant’s comment)

I guess this goes back to the problem with Simple/Normal Users vs. Advanced Power Users…someday Joel will make a blog about how there are 10 different ways to repair Windows (like his post on sleep vs. hibernate vs. hybrid sleep vs. shut off) and people like me don’t see what the problem is with more options (as long as there is some HELPful Description)

By: Bryant

Bryant — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:16:33 +0000

Everyone who just read JJ’s above comment, please scrub your brains clean.

Last Known Good Configuration reverts only the current control set to a previous control set (a backup retained whenever a change is made to the control set).

What is a control set? Basically the relevant hardware/driver and services information needed to get Windows up and running.

System Restore, on the other hand, looks at many other things in addition to just the control sets, including which applications are installed. This also means that if a person reverts to an older system restore point, some additional things may be lost which would have otherwise been preserved had the LKGC option existed.