Track Thread fix my roll back boot

So far I can not find a form that even understand what an in-place upgrade is, now I know MG has some great info so here goes. Hope you guys at least understand the situation.

I did a in place upgrade from win7 ult. to win7 ult. ( same CD ).

Setup did indicate all files and setting will remain so I proceeded. Everything went great until the final restart. Windows just said that it failed to upgrade and will now roll back my system. On reboot I saw the new windows 7 64 boot option as well as the roll back and like an idiot I selected windows 7 64 just to see if it was done enough so that I could finish up the install. To my surprise it didn't boot to the OS and instead finished the install. After that reboot I quick learned it was a new install.

So now I want to roll back but the boot loader option is gone. I do see the files windows made to the roll back, I just need to know how to set up the windows 7 boot loader to roll it back.

this is not the windows.old deal...

here are the folders it made you can search and read up on what I mean.
$INPLACE.~TR
$UPGRADE.~OS
$WINDOWS.~LS
$WINDOWS.~Q
or go here, this shows the same screens I had
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story...

now I can see my old files, windows scattered them all over the folders above. I know that I just need to add a boot entry but how? with EBCD I dont see how to set the path nor what to point to.

 

See I dont understand this why do people keep saying that? Forgive me for not using the right terms but that is what we called in back in 2003-6. Also know as in-place upgrade. I put the wrong link in there I guess but this is where its explained
http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/

and for the lazy types here is an image.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/download.windowssecrets.com/images/wsn/W20110714-TS-Upgrade.jpg

 

From Your link: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/:

The statement in your snapshot is: "Upgrade to a newer version of Windows and keep your files, settings and programs."
Example: Vista(x86) to Windows7(x86) or Vista(x64) to Windows7(x64).

 

It's OK to do what the OP has done - you can 'refresh' Win 7 using that method. However if the installed version is SP1 but the disk being used is pre-SP1 it won't work. This is possibly why his original attempt failed. We would need the OP to confirm that though.

As to rolling back from the full install I wouldn't have a clue about that, even whether it's possible.

 

yeah I finally found a forum with some helpful info.

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/333319-fix-my-roll-back-boot-2.html

Though still fighting this. Going to work on it till I beat this thing, its just the way I am.

 

That's misleading plodr. 7 to 7 does work despite what it says, though the OP still hasn't clarified whether it was SP1 or not, neither here nor in the other place.

 

The image was for prof that you can use windows 7 CD to upgrade it's not my image. I have 3 options at this point.

1) figure out how to make my boot loader boot to the rollback. I think c:/recover is what I need to boot to but that didnt work.

2) re do this upgrade, turns out the reason it failed is the install CD was 32 bit only, and it tried to upgrade from 64 to 32. I know that not possible but it allowed it. I found my other install CD and it has the 64 bit install on it. So I put windows 64 bit on there. Now that I have the windows 7 64 bit I tried this upgrade windows 7 64 to window 7 64. Then after the reboot using the cmd prompt trick I tried to slip stream the folders I mentioned up above (my old 64bit win7). This almost worked but I was not sure what folders to slip stream and it did work right. Some of the old relics were there but not my old data.

3) I plan to boot in to UBCD and manually copy my old data back.
my users folder data
my program folders ( both 68 and 64 folders )
My registry.
All of this was backed up by windows during the in-place upgrade. I made sure to back up the data just in case as well.

So far, 1 and 2 have been hard to make work right, I have yet to try 3.

"What do you want to do? " I just want my old system back. As I mentioned windows backed it up and offered to roll it back but I choose not to and that was what causes all of this. That and the fact windows remitted a 32 bit to 64 bit upgrade, really confused about that.

I never did put sp1 on there.

 

You are making a right meal of this. You have Win 7 installed and you say your old data is backed up, so why not just reinstall your software? Sometimes the hard way is the easiest way.

 

Right that is option 3, tring now.

Problems:UBCD made for xp, no longer works. I found a few others made of winpe but I get errors booting them. The recovery CD works nice but does not give you a nice gui to move files around.

Is there an easy way to copy the old data back in to the right locations? I know you can't copy over a live registry and using a donor system for the transplant flags files because your in a windows environment.

The way I have done this in the past is with UBCD but that wont boot for some reason? 0xc000000f or something.

I just need a simple bootable disc to move files around. I have a few linux live CDs but I have to use linux to move windows files, in theory it will work but I'd rather use a windows pe/re or link environment.

I do have an recovery @ bootable CD here somewhere...

Nothing is simple anymore.

 

So is there some reason you can't do what everyone else does and simply reinstall your software from installation media? Or do you get a kick from doing things the hard way? rolleyes

 

I dont think you realize/understand my situation. I know its a lot to read but I explained it all. My data was backed up by windows inplace upgrade. Its not like some kind of restore data or back up. All of my data is scattered in the 2 of the 4 folders I mentioned. So there is no easy way to just get it back unless I could fix the boot record windows deleted to roll back my os.

In light of the recent events active @ boot CD did work and I'm going through the folders windows made and pulling out the data,over righting my current fresh windows 64 bit install. If the system boots when done I'll be able to take it from there. If not I try this so called in place upgrade against, this time with a 64 bit CD.

Not only is this not a normal situation, its not possible according to Microsoft, so your comment is beyond ridicules. Not sure why you said that?

 

well to make it work I rigged up a filed install, that gave me back the roll back option, and I had the c:\recover backed up. So I just put it back in place and ran the rollback, OS is back.

Kind of the sloppy way of doing it but it worked.

 

It was this statement that I was relying on as it implies that you had a separate backup of your personal stuff, as every sensible user has. With your data backed up you only needed to install your software and that would be it. However it seems that you had neither a normal data backup nor a disk image when going into this 'in-place upgrade' which you had never done before. How reckless is that?

Anyway, what is this 'filed install' you've conjured up that finally rescued the situation?

 

I just opened up the cmd prompt during the winpe install and removed one of the temp folders. Windows didnt like that much and allowed my to do a roll back. Then switched my roll back data with the first fail that started all of this, and windows roll my original system, back happily.

 

I admire your ingenuity for coming up with that - don't think it would ever have occurred to me. Anyway, get yourself an imaging program before you try anything like that again! You might not be so fortunate next time.

 

your telling me...

I was going to pic up two SSD's and just use that windows sync deal. I dont really like fooling with raid controllers. Not sure if windows 7 have that service like 2000 did? If not there is always profram: FreeFileSync or other software.

 

I used Acronis for many years but I've switched to Macrium Reflect this year. Free, very straightforward to use, not lumbered with useless additional features, and completely reliable. You need more than file syncing for the sort of thing you are getting up to

 

My idea is sync two drives, and run a service that keeps them up to date. I did this with windows 2000 server. Then if somethings goes wrong you swap the drives. Os is back up and the bad drive gets re synced.

Or change the boot order but then you also have to switch drive letters assignments in the registry, yuck. I dont mind the swapping.

 

Well, if you have done this before and trust it, fine. But if you are automatically syncing the two drives then any problem with the active drive will also be reflected in the 'backup' drive. The universal advice on this, including at the other forum you used, is to use imaging, and Macrium Reflect is currently the favoured means for doing it.

 

Correct but that's what system restore is for, now I don't mean to suggest my plan is the best I'm open to here other ideas but I'm not willing to shell out for data backups and what not. Every computer has a balance of cost vs security. I'll happy take a suggestions of better software but not hardware.

I have had only to major killers. Some sort of virus take down or more often than not, the power outage. I have a ups but that does not help me when the brow out is 30 minutes + and I'm not around. I'm aware they make ups devices that communicate to the computer and shut it down. Though I have yet to find a nice solution there that is cost effective ( open to here some options ).

When it comes to a software issue I'm usually ok, excluding this go around, even though I beat once again ( 4 days is not fun ).

 

We're way off topic now but just need to address your comment about system restore. SR will not come to your rescue if your system becomes unbootable for some reason, or if you have a disk failure or catch a virus. It will undo a bad install and will often correct other less serious problems but that's about it. In the event of more serious issues only restoring a previous image, using a boot disk, will work. The free version of the program I suggested is one answer but there are several other free alternatives which others may want to suggest. For data backup only there are endless free alternatives available. Nothing I am suggesting requires any hardware other than a drive on which to store backups.

 

I realize what SR does.

I suppose the talk is complete, thx for listening/reading/suggesting.