Windows 7 "recovered" boot menu

[Appleby]

Hey gang, a new customer brought in a Gateway desktop computer running Windows 7. He couldn't really explain the problem, other than, "it won't boot right" and that his 2nd hard drive was no longer recognized. He kept saying if he could get to his 2nd hard drive he'd just restore his computer using one of his backups. When questioned, he couldn't really explain any more than that except that it worked yesterday, he installed PaperPort and now it won't boot and he tried to "recover and restore" it.

When I booted it, I get a boot menu that asks me to choose which OS to boot from. They both say "Windows 7 (recovered)". I chose the first one and it attempted to boot but seem to hang on the Win 7 loading logo. I restarted and chose the 2nd "Windows 7 (recovered)" option and it gave an error about missing files and couldn't boot. I then restarted, pressed F8 for advanced options and chose "Boot normally" and the computer booted just fine. I could see all his files and everything seemed to be working just fine. I looked and I saw he had all his restore points intact so I don't think it's been "recovered". And as he said, the 2nd hard drive is not seen by the OS however, it does show up in the BIOS.

I restarted again normally and chose the first OS option and this time it booted (still seemed slow) and all looked ok.

So here is the question.....is the first boot option the same thing that is booting when I choose "Boot normally" from the advanced options? If so, why does it say recovered? Can I safely remove the 2nd "Windows 7 (recovered)" boot option in MSCONFIG?

He told me if I could get it booted and seeing the 2nd drive he can restore it. Suggestions or thoughts?

 

[rusty.nells]

You could check the path to see what is "normal". You could also set the timeout to 0 (zero) to "hide" the recovery partition, assuming it's not the default.

 

[Vicenarian]

Yeah, not sure if Windows 7 uses the same bootloader as Vista, but you can either use the bootmgr tool built into Vista/7? to modify boot options, MSCONFIG of course, or a cool tool called EasyBCD. Might be worth a shot?

 

[B Trevathan]

Would running the bcdedit command give you more information?
(The bcdedit.exe command needs to be run as a admin. I think it is in the \Windows\System32 folder)

Maybe:
Backup the bootmgr hive by typing: bcdedit /export c:\filename
Remove recovery by typing: bcdedit /set {current} description “Windows 7 or Whatever”

Here's some links you may find helpful:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886%28WS.10%29.aspx
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/5042-recovered.html
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...l/thread/b8049b3a-795a-4847-a54e-1662d4123d8d
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=1842

 

[Appleby]

Thanks guys, I'll give those suggestions a try and the links a look!

I guess what I need to figure out first is if the first boot option in the menu is the same as "boot normally". If it is, I can just remove the 2nd option and all should be good to go....I think. I do know this, I booted it "normally" a few times and it seemed to work great and all the customer's files were present, so that is obviously the OS I want to boot to.

 

[jvcomputerservice]

If the HD is not showing in the BIOS it could be a bad HD. Test it in your machine and see if its detected.

Check if he in fact has two harddisks. Sometimes there are two partions which are seen as two HD by windows and the costumer. (Not many computers come with two HDs)

 

[Appleby]

JV, the 2nd HD is actually showing up in the BIOS. You might have misread my post above. One is 500 GB and one is a terabyte, I can't remember which is the OS HD.

 

[Appleby]

Just an update with the fix....

I booted several times into the first OS option which seemed to be working just fine. I could see in MSCONFIG that the 2nd boot option was pointing to the J drive which couldn't even be seen my Windows. I assumed that was the 2nd HD that seemed to be missing.

I turned off the pc, opened the case and saw a flimsy loose SATA cable going to the 2nd hard drive. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, restarted and all was well and the OS saw the 2nd HD with no problem. There was no OS on the 2nd drive so I'm not sure why that boot option was there. I removed it via MSCONFIG, rebooted and all was well.

Seems like a happy ever after story until I put the side back on the Gateway box and stood it back up. When I did the flimsy DVD drive flip down bezel covers both hung on the carpet in my office and snapped the tiny little plastic peg holding them in on one side. Nice. So now I owe the guy two DVD drive covers and I've spend 1.5 hours getting the run around from Gateway about replacing them. It's under warranty and they say the only way to get those parts is to pay them $199 for them to send someone out with the parts. The pc model is too new to find spare parts online and none of their "official" Gateway part suppliers have them in stock.

The customer was cool about it but I told him I was going to make it right, which he wants. So now I'm stuck. I can't find the part anywhere short of buying a $500 computer. Nice. Not sure what to do. I hate Gateway when it comes to parts and service.