Windows 7 Repair using installation DISK say 0 MB on the system drive

Question

Last Night due to some reason or so my laptop with windows 7 SP 1 64 Bit crashed. I get the blue screen every time I try to boot in. So I decided to repair it using the Installation media.

Now , I am using a USB as an installation Media , and I made it up boot able for Windows 7 SP 1 64 Bit.

After a long wait when I get to the repair Options menu , it says the System partition has 0 MB.

Please help me sort this out. I really can't effort to go for a fresh installation.

And yes my laptop is just 3 months old so I am sure my HDD is fine. It Seems like the partition got corrupted or something

Answer 1

You should continue with "diskpart.exe" commands:

1. select disk 0 - this makes boot disk selected.

2. list volume - gives a list of volumes, their sizes, drive letters, and most important which is the "System" volume !

If "System" volume (say it's Volume number 3) does not have a drive letter use following commands:

a) select volume 3

b) assign

Now examine again volumes with "list volumes" - you will see there is a drive letter assigned to "System" volume. Let it be drive letter K:

Now type "exit" to leave diskpart.

At command prompt type:

K:(enter) - this will make K: drive current.

Now you can use "dir" command to examine files, "cd" for changing directory, "dir /ahs" to display hidden system files and command "del file_name" to delete a file.

I suggest if you do not have much experience with system(boot) files to format partition(volume) K: Then you can run "StartUp Repair" which will recreate necessary boot files on "System" volume.

format K: /q - q is for quick format.

You should run "StartUp Repair" up to three consecutive times with rebooting after each run for best result (one run of StartUp Repair is not always solving boot issues!).

Answer 2

There should be an option to enter the command line tools when booting windows 7 installation recovery mode from the USB. From there you can do a DISKPART and actually see the partitions that it is working with.

Worst case scenario, get an external drive enclosure, remove the disk from the laptop, put it in the enclosure. Go to a working windows 7 sp1 computer, and attach it to see what is actually on the disk, and copy files off.

-john