Post Install OSImage Error

Question

Firstly, great forum. I regret that my first post is a problem.

I have just made a clean install of Windows 7 and everything went fine. I made a clean install from inside the W7 RC on a new SATA hard disk with a genuine Windows & Home Premium Disk. Installation only took about 30 minutes which I was very pleased with.

Everything seemed to be working fine, but after a few restarts (after installing software etc) "Windows 7" suddenly disappeared from the boot menu and was replaced by "Windows Setup". I get to a low res setup screen with the message "Setup Is Starting" and then after about two minutes I get the dreaded "Windows could not collect information for [OSImage] since the specified image file (install.wim) does not exsit" message! The computer then restarts and gets stuck into a loop. 

I can repair the install by booting from the DVD and selecting "repair my computer" although it finds nothing wrong it still works properly after a restart.

I have searched on google and on this forum and it seems people get this error during install, not several restarts after.

The last program I installed before this problem was Avast Anti virus, so I replaced it with MSE but that hasn't solved the problem.

Can anyone help? I would very much appreciate any ideas anyone has,

Many thanks,

David

Answer 1

Dear Vijay B (and Mark L Ferguson),

Your post is NOT the answer. Also, your post is confusing; you keep switching between "Windows Vista DVD" and "Windows 7 DVD", also you mention Windows 7 service pack 1 which wasn't even available at the time of your post! 

Here is the solution, which I eventually worked out myself:

I have three partitions, C: (Windows Vista), D: (Windows 7), E: (Files)

My computer could not find the BOOTMGR file. During installation windows 7 creates a partition which houses the installation files, this is where my computer would boot to when it could not find the bootmgr. For some reason when I had the DVD in the drive the computer would find the bootmgr and all would be fine.

In an attempt to solve the problem I changed the boot order of my SATA drives so the Windows 7 drive was first in the BIOS. This also didnt help, but I no longer ended up at the install partition I just got a "boot failure" message. Next I selected the windows 7 partition (D:) as active in disk management, this returned a "BOOTMGR is missing" error during boot. 

In the cmd prompt I typed bcdedit, which identified that the boot manager was infact located on drive E:, I then went into the BIOS and changed the boot order so drive E: was first and now my computer works! I have not seen this solution anywhere else on the internet after 10 months of trying!

Answer 2

**Hi , Welcome to Microsoft Answers Forum.**Is your windows7 DVD a retail or OEM version?  If it is a retail version you can use the Inplace Upgrade installation to reinstall windows7 over itself.  You can install windows7 over itself. It is called an In-Place Upgrade or repair.

I have included instructions on how to complete an In-Place Upgrade.

You can upgrade in-place, which means you can install Windows windoes7and retain your applications, files, and settings as they were in your previous edition of Windows. An In-Place upgrade is actually a repair installation using the upgrade option. If you have installed Service Pack 1 for Windows windows7  and your original Windows windows7 DVD does not include this Service Pack, then the Upgrade option will be disabled, thus preventing you from doing an in place upgrade. The reason for this is that, by installing Service Pack 1 your system is, in effect, newer than that of your original Vista DVD.

Therefore, if your original Windows Vista DVD does not contain Service Pack 1 you will need to Uninstall Service Pack 1 from your PC prior to attempting the upgrade.

Note: After performing In-Place Upgrade, your personal data and installed programs will not be removed but we may need to run Windows Update to install all the available updates for your system to update these system files to the current version. This troubleshooting process is time consuming and may take several hours to complete.

·         Before you perform an inplace upgrade follow the steps below:

1.  Disable or uninstall all security software’s on the computer.

2.  Remove all third party CD and DVD burning software.

3.  Click on start, in the start search box type appwiz.cpl and press enter.  On the left side click on ‘Turn Windows feature On or Off’. Uncheck .Net Framework 3.0, Remote Differential Compression and Windows DFS Replication Service. Click Ok.

4. Disable system startup items and third party services

a. Click on Start -> "msconfig" without quotes and hit enter

b. Click on startup tab and then click on disable all

c. Click on services tab and place a check mark on Hide all microsoft services which would be at the bottom left handside of the window and then click on disable all

d. Click on OK and then restart the computer.

 4.  Start the in-place upgrade.

 If you would like to perform the In-place Upgrade, refer to the following steps.

1. Start the computer by using the current Operating System.
2. Insert the Windows Vista DVD in the computer's DVD drive.
3. Use one of the following procedures, as appropriate:

 • If Windows automatically detects the DVD, the Install now screen appears. Click Install now.

• If Windows does not automatically detect the DVD, follow these steps:

 a. Click Start, click Run, type Drive:\setup.exe, and then click OK. Note Drive is the drive letter of the computer's DVD drive.

b. Click Install now.

4. When you reach the "Which type of installation do you want?" screen, click Upgrade to upgrade the current operating system to Windows7.

Thanks & Regards,

Hope this helps. Let us know the results.

Vijay – Microsoft Support

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