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I'm about at my wits end, having spent days reading 'how to' posts, downloading repair disks, using Windows Startup Repair, etc. I've tried every repair option using EasyBCD (v. 2.2.0.172), without success. I've even tried all the options up to and including the "Nuclear Holocaust" option given at https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering-windows-bootloader/, also without success. My laptop won't boot, except with the aid of Hirens Boot CD (v. 15.2), first option, 'Boot Windows...from Hard Drive' (wording might differ). Hirens boots to the Windows boot selection menu I've set up with EasyBCD, and it works every time. (Currently, I only have two entries, "Windows 7 Home Premium" and "Windows 7 Safe Mode".) I hope someone can give me a hand with my problem, I would greatly appreciate it! A detailed description follows:
I have an Acer Extensa laptop model 5420-5687, which is several years old. If I recall correctly, I purchased the laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium on it, just prior to the public release of Vista Service Pack 1. (I lost a week of my life installing SP1, despite Microsoft's best efforts to help me [they provided excellent free phone support at that time specifically to help with problems installing SP1].) Despite their help, I had to resort to wiping out my install by using the Acer Recovery Partition, download and install SP1 again, and reinstall all my applications a second time; that worked, though it was the scenario I was trying to avoid!) My point in relaying the previous information is that the recovery partition contained an ancient version of Vista, and having purchased and installed an upgrade package to move to Windows 7 Home Premium, I would never use that recovery partition again (even if someone paid me to do it!).
The laptop's 160 GB hard drive had been configured as follows:
First partition: 10 GB Acer Recovery Partition - hidden, primary
Second " " : 75 GB Drive C: - primary, system, boot, active
Third " " : 75 GB Drive D: - primary
I'd used this configuration successfully for years, though I realized that the Recovery Partition was basically lost space. What I didn't realize was that the Partition also contained the Windows Recovery Environment, which I rarely used (but when I did, I entered it through the F8 menu when booting, not using a recovery or other CD or DVD). It may also have contained some of the boot files, but I was unaware of that at the time, having had no boot problems.
At this point, I decided to use the space occupied by the Recovery Partition to install Robolinux, a Linux distribution I particularly like. So using the partition editor available during installation of Robolinux, I deleted the Acer Recovery Partition, and created 3 others in an Extended Partition in it's place: one for \ (Linux Root), one for \HOME (Linux Home), and one for Linux Swap. Bad decision. I elected to NOT install the Grub2 bootloader to the Master Boot Record (MBR), instead installing the Grub2 files to the boot sector of the \ (Root) Robolinux partition. I had used EasyBCD successfully on another computer, and I preferred to keep the Windows Bootloader in the MBR, rather than use Grub2. On the other computer, that setup works fine.
Low and behold, on the first boot, I was presented with the Grub2 boot selection menu. How could this have happened?! I didn't know, but resolved to fix it with EasyBCD. Unfortunately, the Grub2 boot menu for Windows did not work, sending me to a blank screen with a fat cursor blinking in the upper left corner. I was able to boot by booting to Hirens Boot CD and selecting 'Boot Windows...from Hard Drive', as mentioned above. I got into Windows, and setup a multi-boot menu with EasyBCD, one entry for Windows 7, and one entry for Robolinux. I corrected the MBR and rebuilt the BCD stores using EasyBCD, then rebooted, only to be greeted by the above mentioned blank screen with fat blinking cursor. Rebooting to Hirens Boot CD, I could access the menu I had created, and could successfully boot to either Windows 7 or to Robolinux. Hirens can figure out where the Windows boot partition and files are, but despite all my efforts to repair the boot sequence, and I've tried quite a few, Windows is unable to find the boot menu that Hirens finds so quickly.
I tried many things to correct this situation, so far, unsuccessfully. Booting from Hirens Boot CD works, booting from the hard drive does not. I even went so far as to reorganize my hard drive, so currently it is configured as follows:
First partition: 75 GB Drive C: - primary, system, boot, active
Second " " : 75 GB Drive D: - primary
Unallocated : 10 GB
I thought that perhaps Windows didn't like an Extended Partition as the first partition, and might work by making Drive C: the first partition, and repeating all the repair steps I had previously tried. I am stuck with the same result as just mentioned above: Booting from Hirens Boot CD works, booting from the hard drive does not.
If anyone has any words of wisdom or suggestions regarding my situation, I'm 'all ears'!! Thanks in advance!
aboutblank
June 24, 2016
I have an Acer Extensa laptop model 5420-5687, which is several years old. If I recall correctly, I purchased the laptop with Windows Vista Home Premium on it, just prior to the public release of Vista Service Pack 1. (I lost a week of my life installing SP1, despite Microsoft's best efforts to help me [they provided excellent free phone support at that time specifically to help with problems installing SP1].) Despite their help, I had to resort to wiping out my install by using the Acer Recovery Partition, download and install SP1 again, and reinstall all my applications a second time; that worked, though it was the scenario I was trying to avoid!) My point in relaying the previous information is that the recovery partition contained an ancient version of Vista, and having purchased and installed an upgrade package to move to Windows 7 Home Premium, I would never use that recovery partition again (even if someone paid me to do it!).
The laptop's 160 GB hard drive had been configured as follows:
First partition: 10 GB Acer Recovery Partition - hidden, primary
Second " " : 75 GB Drive C: - primary, system, boot, active
Third " " : 75 GB Drive D: - primary
I'd used this configuration successfully for years, though I realized that the Recovery Partition was basically lost space. What I didn't realize was that the Partition also contained the Windows Recovery Environment, which I rarely used (but when I did, I entered it through the F8 menu when booting, not using a recovery or other CD or DVD). It may also have contained some of the boot files, but I was unaware of that at the time, having had no boot problems.
At this point, I decided to use the space occupied by the Recovery Partition to install Robolinux, a Linux distribution I particularly like. So using the partition editor available during installation of Robolinux, I deleted the Acer Recovery Partition, and created 3 others in an Extended Partition in it's place: one for \ (Linux Root), one for \HOME (Linux Home), and one for Linux Swap. Bad decision. I elected to NOT install the Grub2 bootloader to the Master Boot Record (MBR), instead installing the Grub2 files to the boot sector of the \ (Root) Robolinux partition. I had used EasyBCD successfully on another computer, and I preferred to keep the Windows Bootloader in the MBR, rather than use Grub2. On the other computer, that setup works fine.
Low and behold, on the first boot, I was presented with the Grub2 boot selection menu. How could this have happened?! I didn't know, but resolved to fix it with EasyBCD. Unfortunately, the Grub2 boot menu for Windows did not work, sending me to a blank screen with a fat cursor blinking in the upper left corner. I was able to boot by booting to Hirens Boot CD and selecting 'Boot Windows...from Hard Drive', as mentioned above. I got into Windows, and setup a multi-boot menu with EasyBCD, one entry for Windows 7, and one entry for Robolinux. I corrected the MBR and rebuilt the BCD stores using EasyBCD, then rebooted, only to be greeted by the above mentioned blank screen with fat blinking cursor. Rebooting to Hirens Boot CD, I could access the menu I had created, and could successfully boot to either Windows 7 or to Robolinux. Hirens can figure out where the Windows boot partition and files are, but despite all my efforts to repair the boot sequence, and I've tried quite a few, Windows is unable to find the boot menu that Hirens finds so quickly.
I tried many things to correct this situation, so far, unsuccessfully. Booting from Hirens Boot CD works, booting from the hard drive does not. I even went so far as to reorganize my hard drive, so currently it is configured as follows:
First partition: 75 GB Drive C: - primary, system, boot, active
Second " " : 75 GB Drive D: - primary
Unallocated : 10 GB
I thought that perhaps Windows didn't like an Extended Partition as the first partition, and might work by making Drive C: the first partition, and repeating all the repair steps I had previously tried. I am stuck with the same result as just mentioned above: Booting from Hirens Boot CD works, booting from the hard drive does not.
If anyone has any words of wisdom or suggestions regarding my situation, I'm 'all ears'!! Thanks in advance!
aboutblank
June 24, 2016