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How can I perform an "in-place upgrade" on an unbootable Windows 7 machine or at least rebuild Safe Mode?

Anonymous
2012-05-25T13:32:14+00:00

I've fixed the problem on my own. See my last reply in the thread for the findings & the instructions how to perform the same fix.

Some strange glitch has erased every single unlocked & unprotected file on my C: drive. It wasn't a virus because I checked autorun records and running processes using the respective Sysinternals utilities and didn't find anything suspicious.

I restored all data except for some system files and files that had "too long" of a path using shadow copies, which luckily for me were just a few hours old. Then, I decided to reboot into Recovery Environment and run System Restore from there. For even more strange reason, the available restore points in RE were dated November 2010 (it's May 2012 right now) and the recent save dates are nowhere to be found.

To make matters worse, SFC doesn't work and Safe Mode shows BSOD after loading CLASSPNP.SYS.

Error messages so far:

  • RE's startup repair tool: System files integrity check and repair error code 0x2
  • SFC: Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation
  • BSOD: 0x7B (0xFFFFF880009A9928, 0XFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0, 0x0)
  • CBS.log: Failed to get CSI store. [HRESULT = 0x80073712 - ERROR_SXS_COMPONENT_STORE_CORRUPT]

What I need is a way to perform either an in-place upgrade without booting into Windows, or a way to fix the SXS Component Store, or rebuild the Safe Mode so that I could initiate upgrade install from there. A clean install isn't an option because I don't have the luxury of time to run through the reboot cycles when re-installing and updating other software (I'm using Windows 8 CP for now as my work is mostly in the cloud).

Please save yourself time and don't comment unless you can answer the question or need to know the content of some other log file.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Install and upgrade

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2012-05-31T02:44:32+00:00

After trying some very risky things, such as manually overwriting %windir% with the content of the %windir% from install.wim, I figured out that the problem was in the corrupt registry hives despite the BSOD error being 0x7B (0x0000007B), which usually means a hardware problem.

Windows makes a separate backup of the system registry hives and stores it right next to the live one. I was lucky it had been restored with shadow copies so I did the following:

  1. Booted into standard Recovery Environment (F8 -> Repair system)
  2. Opened the command prompt
  3. Navigated to %Windir%\System32\Config
  4. Ran the command to delete all files: del /P /F *

It will prompt to delete every one of them (SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM) - make sure it's just 4. 5. Ran the command to delete the hidden parts: del /P /F /A:H *

There might be a dozen of these. 6. Copied the backup registry: xcopy RegBack c:\Windows\System32\config /E /I /Q /H /R /K /X /Y 7. Rebooted

However, my system is still not restored. I can't install any updates and reinstallation (aka in-place upgrade) still crashes. I'm trying to fix that now.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-05-31T02:44:02+00:00

    Well, these methods were useless simply because it wasn't a hardware error. More importantly, as I've mentioned in a previous comment, the system is dual-boot and the other OS (Win 8 CP) was working just fine.

    As I found out through trial and error, the problem was in damaged registry hives.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-05-30T12:58:15+00:00

    Hi dnbrv,

    An Inplace-upgrade or a repair installation cannot be done in Safe Mode. You would have to try to perform a repair install when the computer is in the Normal Mode. Otherwise a re-install would be the only option.

    The Blue Screen error or the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) is a STOP error which occurs when the computer faces major errors with the Operating System.

    Method –

    You need to disconnect all peripheral devices like printers, speakers, flash drives, and also the devices like Sound Cards and Displays Cards.

    Also update the latest drivers for your hardware including the **Universal Serial Bus (USB) drivers.**Restart the computer and check if the issue persists.

    Additionally, you need to perform the steps from the article mentioned below to fix the Blue screen errors-

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Resolving-stop-blue-screen-errors-in-Windows-7

    If you are able to boot normally then you need to perform a Chkdsk on your hard disk to look for bad sectors.

    To do so, you need to follow the steps mentioned below –

    a)       Click on “Start” and type “cmd” (without the quotations).

    b)       Right Click on the “cmd” icon and select “Run as administrator”.

    c)        Copy and paste the command mentioned below and hit “Enter”–

    Chkdsk /r /f

    d)       Restart the computer and check if the issue persists.

    Note: The Chkdsk scan will try to identify and repair and bad sectors found on the hard drive. Any data present on these sectors might be lost in the process. The computer can also go into a no boot state. Proceed at your own risk.

    In case the steps from the article mentioned above help you log in to Normal Mode, then you can perform an In-Place upgrade.

    Additionally, you may refer the steps from the articles mentioned below for further assistance-

    Advanced troubleshooting for "Stop error code 0x0000007B (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE)" errors in Windows XP

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

    Install, reinstall, or uninstall Windows

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help/install-reinstall-uninstall

    Hope this helps!!

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-05-26T17:34:34+00:00

    Vijay, I already posted the error message code from Startup Repair tool. It's 0x2 - some driver issue that isn't described fully in the log.

    The computer is dual-boot and the other system (Windows 8 CP) is functioning perfectly fine. Moreover, when I try to start Windows 7, I see the logo loading screen for a few seconds before BSOD. So unless the error codes I've provided indicate a boot sector issue, I'm not messing with it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-05-26T07:27:28+00:00

    Hi,

    Method 1As you have already tried startup repair from WinRe mode, I would suggest you to perform startup repair using Windows 7 DVD.

    Startup Repair

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/startup-repair

    Method 2

    If the above steps fail, then I would suggest you to rebuild BCD.

    How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

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