Windows 7 will not boot; Install not found.

Spincut

Member
I have a desktop that I've been using fine for a little bit over 2 years now. I'm running Windows 7 64-bit. Last night, I left my computer running for about half an hour while I was doing something else. When I came back, it had apparently restarted and was giving me a generic "Disk read error, press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart your computer." I Googled around enough to figure out how to use the repair utility on my Windows 7 CD. Unfortunately, that didn't work. I tried to follow your article on "Recovering the Windows Bootloader from the DVD" (at Recovering the Windows Bootloader from the DVD - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki), but I was unable to do so, as it seems the files specified on my hard drive can't be found. Furthermore, it can't detect my Windows 7 install at all, and it seems a new C: partition called "System Reserved" has appeared, pushing my usual partition to D:.

Trying to start the computer at this point gives me an error in \Boot\BCD with error code 0x0000098, saying that "The Windows Boot Configuration Data file does not contain a valid OS entry." From poking around, that folder does indeed seem not to be on my drive, but a cursory glance tells me that everything else on my drive is there and fine. I really have no idea what to do at this point.

If anyone could help, it would be much appreciated! Thank you!
 
Have you tried the manual method? You may also want to run chkdsk to check for problems with your hard drive. If that fails and you have a Windows 7 disc rather than the disc we provide get a Ubuntu live disc at ubuntu.com to rescue your files to external media and re-install.
 
System Reserved is the W7 boot partition, and is where you should be looking for the \boot folder.
Have you switched the "active" flag away from "System Reserved" and on to your W7 partition ?
That would prevent the system from booting, and also might prevent the repair disk from seeing your OS
The repair disk can also be confused if you have multiple HDDs. If so temporarily disconnect them during the repair.
 
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