Windows 7 is the latest Microsoft’s operating system. It’s something made out of Windows XP and Windows Vista. I found it a stable system and the visual effects are pretty cool. Something I do not really appreciate is the User Account Control which pops up everytime you make a system related operation. I disabled the UAC at the first startup.

Windows 7 was released first to computer manufacturers and leaked on the internet. Today, a retail version is available to everyone.

There are a lot of articles on the internet written about the features of Windows 7, its advantages and disadvantages. Lots of webhsites provide information on how to download and/or activate Windows 7. I would strongly recommend you buy a genuine version of Microsoft Windows 7, so you get all the benefits and avoid all problems. (Do not make/use illegal copies)

Windows 7 not booting?

Here in this article, I’m going to discuss a special case of error in which Microsoft Windows 7 does not boot. This specific case happens when you alter the hard disk’s Master Boot Record (MBR). This might usually happen if you tried to use an activator to activate Microsoft Windows 7 (which is an illegal procedure).

There is a simple way to fix this issue. What you need to do is to fix the boot record. This is done using the Windows 7 installation disk.

“Repair Windows 7″ steps:

1. Set your computer to boot up from the DVD (using BIOS setup, or pressing a specific key on the keyboard while your PC is getting on which lets you choose what to boot from.)
2. Have the DVD inserted when booting the computer,
3. Press any key to start from the DVD once prompted,
4. Wait few moments,
5. Choose language, keyboard layout and click next,
6. Wait few seconds,
7. Click on the “Repair your computer” link on the bottom of the appearing window,
8. It scans for installed operating systems, and tries to fix it if possible, so wait a few seconds,
9. Then (if unsuccessful), click finish,
10. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click on “Command Prompt”,
11. Locate your Windows drive by navigating the hard drive(s), let’s suppose your Windows is installed in “E:”
12. Type in these commands (and press ENTER after each command) :

    
    
    Bootsect /nt60 E: /force /mbr
    
    Bootrec /FixMbr
    
    Bootrec /FixBoot
    
    Bootrec /RebuildBcd
     

    
    

    (More info on BootRec http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392)

13. Remove the DVD and restart your computer.

Your Microsoft Windows should be alive again now!

Ref:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showpost.php?p=138888&postcount=1228

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

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/showthread.php?p=87550#post87550

The problem was that I had deleted my old Windows XP, and though I had no operating system on the PC. Fortunately I did burn a copy of ” The Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows” and it saved me a lot of time throught the process.

After searching for the possible solutions, I came to the conclusion that this error did appear regularly on Vista but as the Windows 7 is quite new, there where no clear documentation on how to resolve this problem.

Possible solutions are:

Disk Errors:

• Run a “CHKDSK X: /F” on your target disk (by replacing X with the proper drive letter)
• Format the installation target partition with tools like Ultimate Boot CD
• (WORKING SOLUTION FOR MY CASE) Using the Windows 7 installation wizard, firstly “DELETE” the installation target partition, then “CREATE A NEW” partition, and then with the same wizard, “FORMAT” the partition.

Unattend Setup:

• If you run an unattended setup, you might face the “Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation” error message, and this is most probably because of improper partitioning information in the “unattend.xml” file.
• Check “Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation” error on Microsoft knowledge base for details on this scenario.
• You can also try to remove the “unattend.xml” file and re-burn the source, to proceed with an attended install.

System incompatibility:

• To make sure that your hardware is not causing this error, I would recommend you remove all uneccessary connected devices, and keep only the strict minimum.
• Check for the minimum system requirements for Windows 7 on Microsoft’s ”Windows 7 minimum system requirements“

Installation Source:

It might be possible that the DVD you’re using for the installation be corrupt, so check it once, and if possible, get yourself another installation source.