Help! Windows 7 won't boot

Hey guys,

I'm really in a bind now. I have windows 7 on my laptop and recently I installed a 320GB harddrive. Everything was working fine. I installed daemon tools a few weeks ago, and when I restarted it wouldn't let me boot, but choosing the option "last known good configuration" from the F8 menu worked like a charm. I uninstalled Daemon Tools.

Today I go to restart from hibernate and get an error. Restart, and the same old boot manager problem pops up. As soon as W7 starts to load I get a black screen from the boot manager saying booting failed due to missing or inacessible device. Only this time, last known good configuration doesn't work. I'm speculating that the boot information was moved somewhere away from the beginning of the drive (BIOS only recognizes first 137GB). Could this be it?? I recently did a cypher command to wipe empty space and lots of stuff could have moved around. This was my first time restarting since. Am I right in my speculations?

Please help!! I don't wanna have to reinstall windows. In the worst case scenario that I do have to reinstall, will it just fix it or will all my settings (and programs?) be wiped!?

Flaviu

 

I would just nuke the thing! What bothers me is that the HDD looks like a pre-XP-SP1 device at 137GB but with W7? :confused It doesn't make sense to me.

Oh, yes everything will be lost if you reinstall. Back up what you need and try again.

 

Hi Flaviu,

I think we need to see full details of the laptop, there's a good chance that you'll have to go hunting for a new 120GB drive if the BIOS only sees 137GB.

 

Ok, updates. First of all the laptop is a Dell Inspiron 9300. The 320GB IDE harddrive was running just fine for weeks until this last hibernation crash. Or perhaps it was the cypher command that misplaced or screwed up the boot sector.

I tried doing a "Repair my computer" off the Windows 7 DVD and it actually found a boot problem that it fixed. BUt then on restart, the computer does the same thing. Now it no longer finds a problem. I also tried the suggestions here: http://www.tomstricks.com/how-to-repair-and-restore-windows-vista-master-boot-record-mbr/ but sadly these didn't work either.

If it helps at all the exact problem I am getting is "Status: 0xc000000e

HELP!

 

can you provide more information on that error you just posted?

judging by the error code you have provided i found some information that may shed more light on your problem. Found here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913379

it points to a problem in the bios

 

The error says exactly:

"Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: 1. ...blah blah...
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible."

I'm not sure what to do with your link I don't understand it.

 

means your system can't see your hardware

 

But then how does it spot the harddrive and my windows 7 installation??