Windows 7 Crash

I came home from work yesterday and wife said she accidently unplugged my computer. I tried to restart/boot it up but can't. I'm running windows 7 and in despiration I tried system restore, which as soon as I click a green box, I get an error message, "Restore Error Message, Error 1" with an "OK" dialogue box. Clicking OK, starts the system with "loading windows" then it takes me to the "Warning" you are about to erase your hard drive...
over and over.

Also lately it seems maybe my hard drive has an issue, while it is sleeping occasionally my computer is really noisy like the hard drive is racing and my computer is unresponsive. I have to turn it off and restart it, then it has rebooted and started normally.

So is this something I can fix myself with a bit of guidance? I've always been able to do it before. I'd like to save my hard drive as I have thousands of photos, most are backed up but newer ones are not.

Thanks IA.

 

Thanks, I tried the link above, LKGC and it just looped me back to where I was before, unsuccessfully
trying to do a system restore. I'd really like to avoid a system restore. I think I'll try to press F8 on an attemped reboot and get to Safe Mode. But I don't know what to do once there. Any help please?

 

The 'last known good' option can be tried several times (I've read as many as 9-10) and I've used it successfully several times at ~5-7 attempts.

 

Are you saying I need to keep trying it repetitively, and hopefully the last time it may just work?

If so, I'll keep trying it. Thanks

 

Yes, keep trying (and keeping count... ) as I've had at least 3x occasions where I've gone above 5 attempts and eventually found one that worked, last time being only ~3 weeks ago and on ~try #7.

 

I tried LKG 12X to no avail.

 

Ach, that's gonna make things harder, seems that your disk has problems, likely the BIOS cannot detect your Boot/System partition(s) and is reverting to the OEM Restore partition. Recent history suggests this was going to happen sooner rather than later anyway, maybe on the next forced reboot.

Computer make/model # specifics are the next step, find out what the original partition layout/naming scheme should be, then work out a method of finding out what's left.

Do you have access to a desktop PC somewhere local?

 

Yes, I have a laptop in the immediate vicinity. It's my Lenovo desktop that failed. I installed a larger HDD in it a couple of years ago. Over the last week or two, the Lenovo has been acting strange. On occasion while hibernating/sleeping with the power still on, it would be making a loud racing noise. I thought maybe it was my HDD spinning super fast but it could have also been the cooling fans. My wife called me once at work to tell me this, I told her to push and hold the power off button, this has also happened to me a few times after getting up in the morning.

I'd really like to get the Lenovo up and running, it has all my thousands of photos, financial and banking info, business related stuff, etc. I also have an external HDD that's full, and a memory stick that I could piece together critical stuff in a pinch, but would rather not have to do that.

 

I have a dual bay Wavelink docking station that I used to transfer data from my original HDD to a much larger one that is in my computer that crashed which I cannot get rebooted.

Does anyone know if it would be possible to get a new (refurbished) computer running windows 10, purchase a larger HDD and install it. Then remove my large HDD in my crashed win 7 older computer and install my photo and documents files onto the new larger HDD thet I just purchased?

Is there a chance the HDD in my current crashed computer is junk? How would I know? Any info, recommendations would be helpful.

 

It seems no matter what I do, or try, my computer always just loops back to this screen. If I click the green, I get an error message, #1.

My computer is a Lenovo M58P with a Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD that I installed 2-3 years ago. It's running Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit.

 

here's the screen shot

 

If the hard drive has issues, or serious issues the more you try to boot it could damage it irrecovably if it isn't already.

The best option is to connect the drive to a known working machine and recover any data you want/need.

 

I have a computer at work I own that is running windows 10. It has a smaller HDD however. Would that be a choice?

What are the steps I need to take to connect it and recover data?

Should I post this in the Hardware forum?

 

Yes, a working desktop/tower PC should work fine, adding a slave HDD to it isn't very different to replacing a drive.

First details needed once connected and into Windows are those from Disk Management showing all partitions on both drives and all Status details for both: right-click (My) Computer > Manage > highlight Storage, Disk Management adjust the window to show all drive details and take a screenshot of it and attach it full size to a Reply, like this:

 

Thanks, may be a few days, but I'll try this and report back, thanks.

 

I've been busy at work and haven't had a chance to remove my HDD at home and try your suggestion above.

In the mean time I found my win7 start up disc that came with my computer and also found the power wire unplugged from my DVD drive that has never worked. I plugged it in and my DVD works.

I'm wondering if I can use my win7 disc to get my computer to start? What is the proccedure to attempt this?

I still get the screen shot I posted above, but if I tap C8 while attempting a start sometimes I get a menu with different choices. It seems no matter what I'd select, it would get me back to the screen shot above. It may be different now my DVD drive works and has my win7 disc.

I still need to know what to try, thanks.

 

I reiterate:

If the hard drive has issues, or serious issues the more you try to boot it could damage it irrecovably if it isn't already.

The best option is to connect the drive to a known working machine and recover any data you want/need.

 

Got it, I'll try that first.

Thank you.

 

What I've done: removed HDD from my home desktop that was running win7.

Opened up my work computer that is running win 10. Plugged in a large terminal ribbon cable with a free connector. I needed a small connector, so I unplugged my DVD and plugged that cable into my questionable HDD from home.

I couldn't find "my computer" in win 10, so I got to where I located "Drive C" which is the original HDD and now "Drive D" which is, I'm assuming my HDD from home that is now installed.

I click on "Drive D" and I get a message that it needs to be formatted before it can be used, and "do I want to format it"? I did nothing and closed it.

So, I'm thinking formatting is going to erase data and I don't want to do that, or do I? I want to save data.

What do I do from here?

 

If you want the data you could all ways buy some kinda docking station and retrieve it.

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Docking-Station-Support/dp/B0099TX7O4

 

Did you try Disk Management to get a screenshot/idea of what partitions were still visible on the drive?

Your error sounds like the route from the Bios > the Windows System partition has been lost, the MBR is no longer pointing to the correct HDD addresses for the partitions. The original OS can't be found, or boot successfully and other OS' cannot 'see' the partition(s) or data.

Providing the HDD is otherwise in good condition, it might be possible to make a full data recovery (even getting the original OS bootable again), by replacing/refreshing the MBR, which will in turn result in the partition(s) becoming visible to the Boot process.

You really should clone your original disk so you can work with the clone, though I'm not sure the clone would have 100% of the data available from the original. Still, it's better to create a clone as a backup, accidents/power overloads can happen, usually when you least expect them.

Describe the 'ribbon' cable or attach a photo of it - if it's an old IDE 40-pin cable, you'll want to check availability/cost/age of the replacement drive.

Formatting doesn't usually remove any data, it's sometimes a relatively easy way to get some 'data recovery' tools to 'see' the data that's sitting there.

UBCD/TestDisk/MBRWork should all be capable of accessing the data (common factor: MBRWork), by 'fixing' the MBR.

What brand is the PC, how old, (needed for clues re. the MBR/partitioning scheme)?