Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

[hellcomer52]

Hey guys just wondering if anyone would have some info on a problem I have had recently,went to boot the other day and got an error, turns out that the error meant the windows 7 partition on my hard drive had been corrupted, don't know how a's I never went near it but I did a bit of research and it seemed to appear that I could just boot from the windows 7 disk and do an upgrade which basically reinstalls windows but keeps all the files you have on the computer, which I thought was great and wouldn't be a problem but sure enough when I go to do this 'upgrade' it says that I have booted from a cd and need to first boot into windows on the hard drive and change some things in there, but of course I can't a's the partition is corrupted, so I could just do a full system rebuild but that would take a little while :/ so does anyone know how to upgrade or reinstall windows using the disk or the command prompt? Also would anyone have any ideas a's to why this happened? I mean I have never been near the files and I don't move my computer around a lot, thanks guys any input and response is greatly appreciated! :) Luke.

[wazza300]

Re: Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

you can do a system restore and a start up repair from booting with the win7 dvd disc,tried that? you should be able to re-install over your original install and it saves all your old files/programs in a folder called windows.old,then its up to you to drag/drop files to your new install

[profJim]

Re: Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

If your system isn't stable, some file corruption might have been caused by the instability.
Without knowing the details of the error message, it's hard to say what the best alternative would be.
You might be able to boot with the windows dvd and perform a repair rather than a full install.
If you can press F8 while booting into windows, the menu might give you an option to repair your system.

Do a web search using: windows 7 repair
and you will find some excellent information.

Let us know if you have more questions and how you eventually make out.

[hellcomer52]

Re: Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

hi guys thanks for the responses :) and i have tried reparing the system from booting from the windows 7 disk but unfortunatly that didnt work :( so what im going to end up doing is reinstalling windows completely and just put the windows.old files back on the system what i havent really figured out much about though is how to go about reinstalling the .old files is it just a matter of dragging and dropping the files or do i have to do it a different way? i have searched quite a bit on this but have barely been able to find anything out :/ any more responses is greatly appreciated :) and i will let you know how everything works out, luke.

[wazza300]

Re: Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

it depends,program wise some will work some will need re-installing,you can open your program files folder in new install and old install and drag them across,same for videos/photos/music,just put them in the folder you want them to be in on your new install,it does advise to back up your hdd before re-installing but ive done a re install over an old win7 install a few times and its always kept my old stuff

it usually tells you when installing that its detected a prevoius instance of win7 and will say it will save old files in windows.old

EDIT,it might depend on how badly corrupted you old windows was on how much stuff it can save,not sure and i cant remember what i re installed for might have been something corrupted not sure

[electric bill]

Re: Windows 7 upgrade? / reinstall?

This is what I do first when this happens.
How To Perform a Startup Repair in Windows 7

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ss/windows-7-startup-repair.htm

Bill