System Recovery Options in Windows 7 on MacBookPro

I have borked my Windows 7 installation on my MacBookPro running Snow Leopard and I now see this after opening Parallels and either starting or shutting down the virtual machine:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen shot 2011-11-25 at 11.13.16 AM.png

I am trying to follow some system recovery recommendations and I can't quite figure out if I need to hold down "Fn + F8" upon a Restart of the Virtual Machine - or if I should put the install Disk in and then somehow /boot/ to the CD Rom or what:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-Windows-7

If anyone has any advice I'd love to fix this problem without a full re-install of Win 7.

Thanks.

 

Use the F8 procedure first, and if it fails use the install disc.

 

hey man. thanks.

ok. i have been trying this but the problem is that there are so many settings and it is so hard to tell what should be open and what should be closed because I have two machines in there and there are settings for the keyboard on the MBP.

right now I have a setting /checked/ so that the ICONS on the keys work - and to get to the FUNCTION keys I have to press FN. So to get to F8 I guess I press "Fn + F8" yes?

also, i put the disk in the MacBookPro.

then i went to CONFIGURE and HARDWARE and selected "CD/DVD 1". It says "OPTIARC DVD RW AD-59XXX". SO I checked "Connected" - because I figured that I need to "hook up" the CD/DVD to the VIRTUAL MACHINE. In this pulldown there is also an otion to select "Default CD/DVD" or to select an "Image files" "prl-tools-win.iso" or to "Choose an image file...".

i mean, i guess I am good to go at this point??

and then - - well, do I press the "Fn + F8" while I am restarting the VIRTUAL MACHINE or the whole MacBookPro somehow?

also, if I shut down the Virtual Machine I get an option to "Start" or "Safe Mode".

anyway, I seem to have tried both this method and the one with the disk and I am not getting anywhere fast.

thanks...

 

hi Specimen. sorry. i have also been trying this without the disk but from what i can tell the steps should be the same with the exception of putting the disk in the computer. in both case i have to make sure about which keys to hold down and i need to make sure what i am shutting down and what i am starting up.

so far it keeps resuming windows which basically brings up NADA.

cheers!

 

grrr. sorry, a restart in this manner brings up the RESUMING WINDOWS splash screen (googly little colored balls( and then it gets me the FULL BLOWN blue background with the leaf.

then I see "Administrator Locked" - which I think I did trying to boot into the CD ROM at some point?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen shot 2011-11-26 at 07.48.26 PM.png

man i really screwed the pooch...

 

eh. i hit switch user, get "Administrator Logged On" and then I get the grey screen again with just a SHUTDOWN and a CONFIGURE button...

 

To boot from the CD you'll probably have to switch the boot order in the VM configuration, so it reds the cd first.

The F8 procedure doesn't require the CD that's why I told you to try that first.


As a side note: from that screenshot I would presume you removed permissions from the Administrator account, which is bad, you locked yourself out of Windows, I suggest you use a previous restore point (via recovery).

 

Hi. THANK YOU.

Can I please just ask you where I find the Boot Order. I guess it is under Configure?

ALSO. I just realized I have a backup of this machine in the truck (my MobileMe backup /excludes/ the Virtual Machine and my on-site Clone may be too current and have the corrupted OS but probably it is also good).

Anyway, would it be better to just manually restore the PARALLELS FOLDER? I mean, I don't keep any data in the Virtual Machine and if I borked the system by doing some Registry Customizations maybe it is just better to go back to before I started these?

Is this as easy as copying the old Parallels folder over the one that the MBP is using?!

Thanks.

 

Configure>Hardware>Boot Order.

(Please try to be more methodic when asking questions and not just shoot things as they come to your mind, it takes an enormous effort, more than I'm willing to give, to make sense of what you are asking. In reality I'm still on answering your first post and the doubts you had related to that, all the rest is too fuzzy and shoots in various tangents at the same time, so I deliberately ignored it.)

 

Hi Specimen.

Sorry. Thanks for the very straight-forward heads up. Some of this is very hard for me to follow so I throw in things that I think may be important. But also I know I have a tendency to do this unproductively. Sorry.

Following your help (I actually had to hold down the F8 key and press another random key otherwise it would do the normal boot procedure) I was able to get to the install disk.

There appears to be an option to "Upgrade" which seems to be the option "when another version of Windows is /running/" and which does not overwrite files and then there is the "Custom (advanced)"? When I try the Upgrade I get this prompt which seems confusing:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen shot 2011-11-27 at 12.08.12 PM.png

When I try the second I get a prompt that says that there will be a "windows.old" that will be created and data is over-written.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen shot 2011-11-27 at 12.14.31 PM.png

Is it OK - or good - for me to just take the second option and then delete the windows.old file if I am pretty confident that there is nothing on the old install that I need to keep? I mean, I have Windows 7 there and one program with some program files that are also stored on another drive and on my backups...

Thank you!!

 

This is wrong. YOU DON'T WANT TO UPGRADE. YOU WANT "SYSTEM RECOVERY OPTIONS".

You either boot with F8 (without the install disk) till you get to a screen that says something like "System Recovery Options".

Or you boot from the install disk changing the boot order till you get to a screen that says "System Recovery Options".

Follow this guide to get to recovery options (it's for Vista but it's similar in 7): http://bertk.mvps.org/html/recovery.html

This is what the link in your first post pointed at.

I also suggested when you are at the screen you use "system restore" and pick the date immediately before your last changes that locked you out (if it's not too far in time).

 

hi. there is no system restore option. there is "Upgrade" or "Custom (Advanced)" and this is when I boot to the CD ROM. After taking a look at these two options (and not going any further) I was /then/ able to boot into Windows 7 Professional.

I was not able to boot into F8 at the time as it actually requires that you hit a key on the keyboard at the same time or you will simply boot into Windows splash screen BTW. This actually flashes very quickly on the screen during the boot process but since it happens so fast it would be very easy to miss BTW.

So I tried this again here - again /after/ inserting the CD ROM and appearing to get into Windows 7 - and I am now able to see what appears to be my users' desktop.

Is there a way to check which user I am logged into and to check this Admin issue or is there anything else you can advise that I check?

Thank you!

Also, thanks so much for the advice.

 

When you boot from the the install disk don't you see something similar to this? http://bertk.mvps.org/html/recovery.html

 

hi. thanks. no.

as i described in the last post i was getting a dialog that gave me two options:
1. Upgrade
2. Custom (Advanced)

When I clicked on the first i got the screenshot i posted first. when i clicked on the second i go the screenshot i posted second. i was trying to figure out which one to do, and I backed out and ejected the disk.

at that point for some reason i was able to boot into what appears to be my user environment but i need to check the the "Administrator Locked" issue in the third image [ http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15285654/Screen shot 2011-11-26 at 07.48.26 PM.png ] and it is hard for me to know what else to check. the machine is getting locked up and there seems to be an issue with my HP Printer driver but I realize this is very off-topic.

At the same time until i can isolate the situation i just have a brick for laptop which is basically nothing new...

 

I'm sorry, but I have to insist, for what I know you only get to those two options after you clicked a big button that says "Install Now", but on that screen that says "install now", there's a link at the bottom that says "Repair your computer".



To get to Recovery Options you need to click "repair your computer".

 

hi. thanks. i will try it again. sounds like i may have missed this.

ok if i report back on how it goes?

thank you.

 

Try "System Restore" first, pick a date immediately before your first issues and you could login, it will put your Windows 7 back the way it was on that date (anything done after will be lost).

You might try "Startup Repair" after if the last date before you have been locked out is too far in time and you might lose important information that way, although, considering the problem at hands I don't think that will work.


Sure, report back, I'm curious to know how it goes. I also really want this to work, I'm a persistent person when I know what I'm doing.

 

hi specimen. thank you.

for me this one is a bit tricky because it is win 7 (new to me) and parallels (also new to me) and because i am working on a mac (also new to me). so I sort of have the tri-fecta going here. win xp boot camp was really the last os i worked in regularly but i wasn't really an expert in there anyway.

the two things that were tricky here was making the cd/dvd the first item in the list but /also/ to put the cd/dvd as being "held" by parallels in configure. otherwise afaik the cd/dvd isn't even seen by parallels.

anyway, /long/ story short - is that i did a full shutdown and restart and i seem to have successfully booted into SAFE MODE without accessing the cd/dvd (because i had to turn the cd/dvd back to the mac to do some work). obviously i chose safe mode because i got three options when this came up and safe mode seemed the safest...

anyway, would you advise my moving forward at this point in safe mode or would you advise my shutting down the VM and booting to the cd/dvd?

again a big thanks for your help.

- Jon

 

This is not what we were talking about...

We were talking about booting with windows 7 cd, not pressing f8 and booting into safe mode.

shutdown the virtual machine, go into its configuration.
configure>hardware>boot order> put cd/dvd first
configure>hardware>CD/DVD1> tick "Connected" and select "Default CD/DVD"

Put the cd in the drive

now boot it.

 

Hi Specimen.

So I was able to boot to the cd/dvd. Interestingly, you also have to hit a key while it is booting while you have the F8 key held down. This alert flashes very quickly on the boot process but it is very easy to miss it. If you don't do this you will just boot into windows normally and not to the cd over and over and over.

So I tried the System Restore but it tells me there are no restore points to restore to. I suppose this is something I need to address in the future but the options remaining are:

Startup Repair
System Image Recovery
Windows Memory Diagnostic
Command Prompt.

Thoughts?

On my end, I am wondering if it might be possible to just re-install windows 7. This is a relatively new virtual machine and i would have the added benefit of installing my software fresh without worrying about previous problems. i've been working for a long time to convert the office over to mac and there is only one piece of software that I need to re-install on the virtual machine at the moment. Can I ask you if this might be easy and straightforward?

Thanks again.