Cannot boot Windows 7 - startup repair not working

Hi anyone and everyone,

To cut straight to the chase, my computer will no longer boot into Windows 7. I don't specifically know exactly what's caused it, however I would very much like it if I could resolve the issue quickly. I'm not exactly sure where to begin on this sort of issue, as I've fortunately never had to directly deal with any problems like this ever - my brother was always on hand to do that, as he was/is the 'tech support' in our family. Unfortunately for me, this time it looks as though I'm going to have to strike out on my own, so I've come to these forums looking for some assistance if possible.

Seeing as I'm not sure where to begin, I'm not sure what's important to include and I'm paranoid about not including something that could be vital to assisting me, I'll state every piece of information that I think could be involved with this.

So: Approximately 4 hours ago, I'm randomly surfing the web (have both Firefox [Version 3.6, or thereabouts. Haven't upgraded to v4] and IE open, with each browser having numerous tabs [30-50] open at the time), decide to go to google and look up some less-than-healthy sites (this is on Firefox). Open many (~5) of them in new tabs, causing my computer to lag slightly - as my computer loads each page one-by-one, a new firefox window opens as each one loads showing ads to some explicit sites or something. I don't look too much at the new windows - I just close them as they appear. One of the windows, upon opening, initiates a Microsoft Security Essentials red alert on the right side of my screen - I click 'Clean computer', and about a second later, the Microsoft Security Essentials bubble pops up again, only this time it's green, and saying 'Computer status-protected', or words to that effect. Less than maybe 5 seconds later, my computer just suddenly switches off - as if someone had pulled out the power cable.

I should mention by this stage that the last time I had turned off this computer was about April the 28th, and that for the past 2 days of so, Microsoft updates had been saying that new updates were available that I hadn't yet downloaded.

I turn on my computer, and in the process of turning it on (thinking that maybe there was something in the DVD drive), I open the drive, find a DVD in there, and then close the drive. Meanwhile, I've noticed that my computer hasn't one through the normal turning-on procedure, and has gone into 'Startup repair'.

Startup repair runs, and it can't find out what the problem is. I run it again, and at the end of the process, a new window opens saying "Startup repair cannot repair the computer automatically". In this same window, it lists 'problem details', which are as follows:

I then click 'Send report', which then causes a smaller window to pop-up, saying it's searching online for a solution for the problem. That closes, evidently meaning that my computer can't find a solution to the problem online.

I try a couple more Startup repairs, getting pretty much the exact same results as what I've described here. I then try "View advanced options for system recovery and support", and try System restore a couple of times - each time fails, however even then, only if I use the latest system restore point does the process even manage to complete (and even then, only sometimes).

Finally, I look at "View diagnostic and repair details". This is a quite a big section, so so that I don't have to copy out the entire thing word for word onto here, I'll reference a similar post which states the entire diagnostic and repair details for their problem - mine looks pretty similar:

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-d...iroffline.html (refer to the second 'Code' quote)

As I said above, my diagnostic and repair details window looks virtually exactly the same (minus dates etc.), however a couple of System restores ago, my window was saying that the file D:\ CI.dll had stuffed up somehow (much like Computer won't restart: "Root cause found: Boot critical file D:\CI.dll is corrupt."). For some reason, it's not showing it after the System restores/Startup repairs now.

And this leaves me here, writing this message (lessons learned btw - never get angry at the computer and decide to open loads of tabs at once, let alone when they're containing content you shouldn't even be looking at in the first place :S ).

Final point: I am not really technically minded at all - perhaps due to the 'bubble' generated at home by my brother constantly being on hand to help me with my copmuter issues - and as such, have virtually no idea what exact operating system I'm running (beyond it being 'Windows 7'), what my video card specs are, how much RAM my computer has, etc. My apologies in advance.

I'm really distraught by this situation that I'm in, and I'd gladly welcome any and all help that ANYONE could provide. Thanks.

Bump.

...anyone? Anyone at all? Please, if you think you might know anything that could help - I'd be incredibly grateful if you'd reply. As of today, it's now almost 4 days since my computer crashed, and I'm starting to get nervous/wondering what's happened. Whilst I can find _relatively_ similar scenarios of others on the internet, none are exactly similar, and so I really do feel as if I'm stuck and without a clue of how I'd go about getting out of this situation.

Can you run Safe Mode? If so try a system restore point prior to this problem starting. Sys restore works in Safe Mode when (in my experience) the majority will fail in Normal Mode. The only downer (I believe, and willing to be corrected!) is that a Safe Mode System Restore is non-reversible. But I don't think you'll be worrying about that at the moment.

Also run Safe Mode with Command prompt and run sfc /scannow.

I also suggest you download TDSSKiller and run it in Safe Mode to rule out a prevalent RootKit.

Then download, install and update Malwarebytes' Free. Run a full scan in Safe Mode.

That, of course is presuming you can get that far!!

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Yeah, more info about hardware would be helpful. Could you tell us what brand and model # you have? We may be able to gather some info from that.

Have you tried booting into safe mode?

Dang Elmo!

(snigger! snigger!)

Hmm, I'm not too sure. I did eventually work out how to run my computer in safe mode (which apparently is not just spamming F8 once the computer restarts, as I read one official windows 7 support engineer say, but rather waiting until the motherboard screen [I suppose you'd call it?] goes away), however, it unfortunately went right back to into 'system repair' and displayed the same old window I've seen every restart since my computer crashed.

I will however try again, once I've finished vacuuming my computer of all the dust within it - because I so rarely turn it off (something my brother's chastised me about...and after this incident, I may be inclined to agree with him :S ) and the fans are constantly turning, loads of dust gets inside it. Sometimes my computer's fans make weird sounds in the couple of minutes after turning the machine on (when I do do that, that is), which I am hoping is accounted for by my dust problem.

Hmm. Not too sure if I've done this though - I'll try a safe mode reboot again (that is, after I've finished the internal vacuuming) and try system restoring + running Command Prompt afterwards, and see what effect that has on the situation.

Will certainly do this once I get my compter back into working order to some degree

Hmm...well, thanks to a certain Blizzard beta System Checker, I've thankfully been able to find (some? all? all of the ones normally used?) [of] my computer's specs.

Bear in mind though that these specs were as of maybe ~6 months ago, and whilst I haven't added or taken away anything major from my computer, the information regarding Hard Disk Free Space might be slightly off - no more than maybe 5-10 GBs though.

Thanks SO much for both of you guys' help! Whilst I can't test all of the things you've suggested out at the moment, I certainly will ASAP - even if they don't work, it'll at least give me some more information to work with if I need to go further. And of course, it's always nice to know that people are trying to help you

I'd dearly love to know whether this problem has been resolved. With the exception of "less-than-healthy sites," I've experienced the exact same sequence of problems and attempted many of the same approaches to solving them, all without success.

I cannot boot Windows 7 (Pro, x86-64) normally or in Safe Mode (with or without Networking). Windows Repair fails, and Windows Restore (to a configuration several days old, a point I believe to be untainted) does not seem to have any affect.

I can launch a command prompt but am not sure what good that will do.

I believe this is in connection with the Open Cloud malware application.

The machine has been stable for the past six months or so. Intel Core2 Q9550, Win7 64-bit, NVIDIA GF8800GTS, ... no recent hardware or software installations. Was running Firefox.

Thanks for any help.

kermudgeon, it's a virus and if you cannot even boot to safe mode then your best and safest solution is to wipe (format) the harddrive and perform a fresh install (or restore from a system back-up if you are one of the small percentage of users that have made one).

Thanks for your response. I have actually already installed Windows on a new partition and transferred the data over. That's usually the safest bet, just cumbersome to reinstall all of my applications.

Anyone out there should feel free to point out alternative solutions if they have them; I found this thread useful even though it is several months old.

Data can hold virus code as well. Be sure to run a complete scan.