Windows 7 recovery ate my hamster (or rather: Black Screen of Death)

Thirith on 22/5/2016 at 14:05

Previously on Adventures in Upgrading then Downgrading Windows: yesterday my wife's PC decided it was time to upgrade to Windows 10, starting to do so automatically. The upgrade went well enough, but then her favourite games no longer worked, and after I wasn't able to make them work with the compatibility options, I tried to roll back to Windows 7. After a while this got stuck: I get the Win7 launch animation, but then I just get a black screen with a mouse pointer. Windows, or at least parts of it, is active, it seems, as I can press Shift repeatedly and get the Sticky Keys dialogue - but getting to the desktop doesn't work. I've tried the various boot options, but no dice.

To add to this situation, the computer's an HP laptop. It offers a radical repair option that basically amounts to a complete reinstall. I've downloaded a W7 Home Premium ISO and tried to use that to repair Windows 7, but this doesn't work with the OEM version that's on the computer. (I'm currently in the process of downloading an SP1 ISO which, according to some posts I've found, might work, but I'm not overly optimistic.)

So, this is where you guys come in:

* Any ideas/tips/dark magic involving the sacrifice of goats I could try to repair Windows 7 on the machine?
* Should this fail, is there any way I can backup all the data on the PC without being able to boot into Windows 7? If I end up having to reinstall everything, at least I'd want to make sure that none of the data is lost.
*

voodoo47 on 22/5/2016 at 15:22

a linux live cd/usb to recover the data, then take a deep breath, and install win7sp1 (I use the msdn images) from scratch, wiping everything clean once the first screen with drive option loads. yeah, it's quite a bit of work, but it's clean work, and it shouldn't make you want to claw out your eyes, something that's pretty much guaranteed should you try to unscrew what you have now.

don't forget to disable updates so win10 wouldn't load once you are done.

Thirith on 22/5/2016 at 16:38

Thanks for the tip re: disabling updates - I would probably have to throw things against the wall if I were to reinstall everything from scratch only to have Windows 10 be installed again. (Myself, I like Win 10, but my wife's more attached to certain games than to a specific OS.)

Al_B on 22/5/2016 at 16:43

Agreed, using a live Linux installation is well worth using to get any essential data off if you want to be safe. I had a PC that refused to boot into Windows and attempting to access the drive from other Windows installations would also crash (there was an issue with the NTFS partition information). A live CD (Knoppix I think, but there are (https://livecdlist.com/) loads of others) was able to see the drive fine and get anything needed from it.

For the ISO have you tried downloading it (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows7) from Microsoft with your OEM key? Probably preferable to using an unknown source of images from elsewhere.

Thirith on 22/5/2016 at 17:37

Thanks, Al_B. I've tried downloading directly from Microsoft using my OEM key but was told that for OEM versions I'd have to get in touch with the company that made the laptop. I've sent HP a message, but I'm not confident they'll help much; HP has a recovery tool that only offers a scorched earth approach: formatting the main drive, reinstalling everything...