Windows 7 won't boot or run sfc /scannow - says repair in
I upgraded my HP laptop from Vista to Windows 7 and it has been working for a year. This morning the laptop will not boot up and when I run repair it runs it over and over and will not boot up. I run the diagnostics on the hard drive it gets to about 8% and then stops with #10008 Replace Hard Disk and then SMART Hard Disk Passed. I get into the Windows 7 repair page and run it over and over with no results and it does not list an any operating systems on System Recovery Page. On the System Recovery Options page it says Operating System unknown. It does not allow System Restore either. I can get the command prompt (X:\windows\system32) but when I try to run sfc /scannow it will not let me because there is a system repairpending that requires a reboot to coomplete, and so it goes over and over. I tried using my Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade disk but that does not help. I would re-install it but it will not let me do an installation unless I boot the system from the computer and not the DVD. It seems like I am in a continuous loop to start out 2012 and I do not know how to get out of it. Any help would be great appreciated.
January 2nd, 2012 2:13pm

1. Find the diagnostics tool on the HDD vendor's page, download it and either burn it on CD or create bootable USB (diskpart is your friend). 2. For sure I would recommend test RAM. 3. Install vanilla plain W 7 system or use recovery DVD. If you fell like some more testing prior to full reinstall, use install with upgrade option. Regards Milos
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January 2nd, 2012 2:20pm

Hi, Start out with an offline verification, http://mikemstech.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-perform-offline-system-integrity.html -- Mike Burr Technology
January 2nd, 2012 5:30pm

•Please boot into safe mode, by starting your computer and continuously pressing F8. Then choose "Repair my computer". If that doesn't work, load Recovery console from the Windows CD. If you need any help on this, please let me know. •Log in to your Administrator account •From there, choose StartUp Repair, just to see if it can do anything by its own. •If it can't do anything, select "Command Prompt" •Please make sure you follow the instructions of this guide exactly as given or you might risk more problems. NOTE; Make sure you press Enter after each command. Make sure all commands are exactly as shown in this guide, including "spaces". First, we will start off with this command. Quote bootrec /RebuildBcd Note about the above command. bootrec /RebuildBcd will search for pre-existing installations of Windows and rebuilds sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompiles the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors. If there is only one installation, it should use it automatically, without asking anything more For the Enter Load Identifier portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed. If, for example, you are using Windows 7 Home, you could type Microsoft Windows 7 Home Edition for the identifier (it's not crucial, however what the name is, as long, as it's meaningful). For the OS Load Option portion of this command, you should enter the following: /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things: Here is what you should see: •The following command verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows 7 installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows and that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be causing issues. Take note that this scan might take a long while. Leave it running uninterrupted! CHKDSK /R •This last command writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ? just hit "Y" and hit Enter to confirm your decision: bootrec /fixboot •Type sfc /scannow (note the space) (Let this run undisturbed until the window with the blue progress bar goes away) SFC - Which stands for System File Checker, retrieves the correct version of the file from %Systemroot%\System32\Dllcache or the Windows installation source files, and then replaces the incorrect file. •It’s time to reboot your PC by typing: EXIT and pressing Enter. With any luck, your PC will boot successfully into Windows 7.
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January 3rd, 2012 8:04am

Mark, thanks for your response. I had no success with the others. •If it can't do anything, select "Command Prompt" •Please make sure you follow the instructions of this guide exactly as given or you might risk more problems. NOTE; Make sure you press Enter after each command. Make sure all commands are exactly as shown in this guide, including "spaces". First, we will start off with this command. Quote bootrec /RebuildBcd I did this and got a different result Total Identified Windows Installation: 1 [1] C:\ Windows Add Installations to boot list? Yes (Y), No (N), All (A)= I tried Yes and it responded This requested system device cannot be found. I formatted the C: portion of disk and reinstalled Windows 7 Premium Home Edition from scratch and went through setting it all up and over 90 updates, including SP1 and things seem to go fine. System rebooted a number of times and it was working. Then out of nowhere went restarting on an update it went right back to where I started before. It appears through various operations I loose communications to the Boot file. When I read some of the reports I get the No Bootable Device available 0x3bc3. I run the repair disk over and over and then get it to run again. The difference now is that all the Memory and Hard Drive tests run to completion and say OK. The last time that it happened I got a momentary blue screen that was gone before I knew it and I was back again to where I started. I am not running chkdisk on C: again and it seems to be doing OK. Any more ideas for me. I did remove and reseat the hard drive WD3200 just to be sure connections were OK before I formatted and started from scratch. Seems to me that the boot record is out there but I cannot get to it. Thanks, Dave
January 3rd, 2012 8:38pm

Mike, I tried all that is in your blog without success. When the I go to Repair on the Windows disk it does not show any operating system to repair. I went to command prompt and found the disk volumes 0 is repair disk, 1 is C NTFS 287GB Healthy, 2 is D Recovery NTFS 10GB Healthy. I ran all of your steps for chkdsk and it seems to be fine. It will not run the sfc /scannow command telling me "There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run sfc again." I followed these instructions: The second indicates that incorrect arguments were given, or there is a file that needs to be removed or renamed in the \Windows\winsxs\pending.xml path. For this installation, this is D:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml. For this particular system, this is the correct command to run based on the output of diskpart above sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=d:\Windows I tried the to run the sfc command recommended above but was not sure of the directories I should be using. That did not work and I seem to be in an endless loop. I did get the system to boot up and run for several hours, updating Windows 7 to current state and I thought I was in business. As I was downloading one more application I got the dreaded blue screen and things went right back to where they were. Not being able to recognize the operating system at all. Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated....Is it possible that the hard drive is bad even though it runs the HP checks and chkdsk OK?I am about ready to get a new one (wd3200) and start over again but don't want to do that if I could have the same problem. Help....Dave
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January 4th, 2012 5:24pm

Mysteries continue to happen. After running the "repair computer" software a number of times the computer all of a sudden is running again. Still seems to be shaky and I am concerned that I have not really solved the problem. I am able to us it, but when I try to run the sfc /scannow I still get the message that there is a problem that needs to be repaired before I can run it. Not sure where to go from here. After hours of reinstalling everything I need to use it and having it drop out again I am wondering the best way to run diagnostics to really repair the problem. The blue screens that I have gotten twice now go so fast that I cannot read what they say and then the computer is dead and cannot find a boot file unless I put in a recovery disk and boot from that. It can take hours of trying all the things that have been suggested here and then I end up back where I started. The computer is not that old and we use it for email, documents and pictures so I would like to keep it running if I can. Time I have plenty of, money for a new computer not so much. Thanks again for all the help you have been giving me. By the way the Hard Drive is a WD3200BVET if that makes a difference. Update 1/9/2012 seems to be working again now after running WD checks, reloading operating system. Runs chkdsk without a problem, but still will not run sfc /scannow. Just going to use it and see what happens when........the mysteries of the computer world continue to amaze me. Again, thanks to all who helped me out.
January 5th, 2012 11:03am

Just droping a note for a possible fix. I had a very close to the same issue here. I tried the Microsodt FixIt's, sfc, reinstalling the Microsoft Download Agent, amongst many other fixes. I always got 2-3 different error codes, depending on what I tried, to a pending system repair requiring a reboot. I'm not sure exactly what caused the original issue (I replaced the primary drive, I did an update and the computer froze forcing me to do a hard shutdown). Not both at the same time. Everything appeared to work fine until I just recently tried to update again. My installed updates were blank, and the history showed nother newer than 4 months ago. I found on another page, someone that found a fix, and it worked for me. The fix for me was sp47845.exe (Intel Rapid storage Technology Driver). I lost the website that I downloaded it from, but it is on the HP website.<o:p></o:p> http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&softwareitem=ob-82337-1<o:p></o:p> After a reboot, all is working. Hope this helps.<o:p></o:p>
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April 24th, 2012 11:58pm

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