Is there a REAL way to do Repair Install on Win7

[Niclo Iste]

SP1 torched my system, and as exciting and wonderous as that event was, doing a repair installation just filled me with the most joy I have ever felt in my life. Does anyone have a suggestion of doing this at all? I've found the "alternative repair installation" guides, but really, who does a repair installation on a fully working BOOTING installation of windows? My issue is I have to fix this system as I really don't want to spend the next 3 months re-installing every tool and program I ever use.

[cookin chef]

I'm guessing you already tried to boot into Safe Mode to uninstall sp1 or selecting last good known configuration with no success.

I use the builtin Windows 7 backup/restore feature with an external sata backup drive and made a win 7 recovery bootable CD. It helped me on one occasional.

Do you use this built in backup feature and made any recent backups?

PS> You could also try hiren's bootcd....lots of recovery options listed.

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

[Niclo Iste]

I wasn't aware of the backup feature until reading. Though I generally make an image before doing things like this I forgot to this time. As far as Hiren's Boot CD I didn't know it had tools that were effective on Win7. I only have used that for repairing XP machines.

[slgrieb]

I think the answer is essentially, "no". If Startup Repair doesn't fix the problem, System Restore should. If things are bad enough that neither of these options work, then I would expect that you had some "pre-existing conditions" and you are uninsurable.

Sorry, just got a little political there. Really, if you don't have a functional System Restore point prior to SP1, you might have either drive or memory issues. I'd test at least the hard drive, and then, if no problems were found, restore a previous backup.

[Niclo Iste]

Well after failed restore attempts a checkdisk finished off the recovery. Not sure how or why but I'm not about to question it since I'm back up and running. Going to clone this guy before I try again with the faux repair install steps.

[Guts3d]

Well after failed restore attempts a checkdisk finished off the recovery. Not sure how or why but I'm not about to question it since I'm back up and running. Going to clone this guy before I try again with the faux repair install steps.

Just a quick question, what software / version are you using to clone?

[Ferrit]

Cloned my system with Acronis before I got started with SP1.
Didnt have to, it went flawlessly.
Time to do the rest of the machines in the house.

[Niclo Iste]

Just a quick question, what software / version are you using to clone?

I use acronis just like ferrit. I just was absent minded and forgot to do it before doing a SP.

[slgrieb]

Here's a bit more on some of the reported SP1 glitches and some fixes:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/quick...e_skin;content
and
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/micro...t;feature-roto

[sunrise]

I've got a similar problem. I was asked to repair a computer with win7, shortly after it starts to boot that old blue screen of death rears it's ugly head, but before I can read what it says the system reboots. This guy has no restore points, no backup of any kind, but of course he has important files that he doesn't want to lose. Am I dead in the water as far as a repair install is concerned? ( Ah for the good ole days of XP)

[Ferrit]

I owuld say taking any chance trying to repair is like committing Hari_Kari.
Pull the drive and put it in another machine and get the important stuff copied right away.
That;s step 1

[sunrise]

Yeah that's what I thought.Thanks
By the way what's step 2? I mean besides writing Bill a nasty letter

[MobilePCPhysician]

While the drive is in another machine, run an antivirus program at it. Then run Malwarebytes. Then run chkdsk. Then put it back in. Boot. And see what happens. If it still won't go to the desktop, run a repair install.
Trendmicro.com for online scanning. If you can get it to boot from the host computer, download and run ComboFix. Make sure no other antivirus program is running when you run it.