# Windows 7 won't boot - the partition table does not have a valid system partition



## be4con (Mar 20, 2006)

Suddenly my Win 7 Home Premium x64 will not boot. The system starts, POSTs then loads the DVD driver, then the screen goes black (not blank but "lit up" black if that makes sense). Then nothing...

If I use Hiren's boot cd I can boot up using the "boot from HDD" option fine and Windows operates normally.

System restore to a previous configuration made no difference to the original problem.

I cannot boot into Safe Mode. F8 just offers me boot order options.

Running the Windows 7 DVD I find the following:

No operating system is listed on the Repair Windows option.

Running Startup Repair finds the following error: "the partition table does not have a valid system partition" which it claims to have repaired, but the error remains and Windows will still not boot.

I found a few threads on a Google search and followed this advice in one:



> Boot 7 dvd to system recovery options command prompt. Type:
> 
> Diskpart
> 
> ...


My system partition was easily identified and listed as healthy so I selected it and made it active. The problem still remains exactly the same. The rest of the advice in that thread isn't relevant to my exact problem and involves additional command prompts which I didn't feel comfortable typing in as I'm a command line idiot

My system is self built just over a year ago, to my knowledge has been running fine, without any hardware issues.

I'm prepared to do a clean install if that's what it takes but if there is a way to fix the partition problem without that I'd like to explore it first. Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Hi did you read the rest of the thread Solved Invalid system partition - Page 2 - Windows 7 Forums
you could always try the info here Ntldr is missing error in windows 7 boot - Microsoft Answers


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## be4con (Mar 20, 2006)

Thanks, that first link was the thread I took the quote from. As I stated my problem doesn't seem to be exactly the same in that I do not get the 

"NTLDR is missing crtl alt delete to restart" error message. 

Because of that and because I don't understand the cmd prompt entries suggested I didn't feel confident just typing them in as I wasn't sure what they would do. Can you confirm that I would be safe to type what is suggested in that thread and won't do any further damage?

With regards to the 2nd link, I can't follow that, as I can't get into the system recovery environment, pressing F8 just gives me boot order priority options.


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## Noobus (Oct 21, 2011)

be4con said:


> Thanks, that first link was the thread I took the quote from. As I stated my problem doesn't seem to be exactly the same in that I do not get the
> 
> "NTLDR is missing crtl alt delete to restart" error message.
> 
> ...


Hi be4con,

You can give the command a go, it shouldn't do any damage but as you said it won't guarantee a fix for your issue.

Since you already have hirens, have you tried any of the boot repair utilities?
There's a bunch of registry entries we can check, but no point if one of these utilities can do the work 

L


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Hi we do not use hirens here as it breaks quite a few eulas ie the software belongs to a specific company and there is no permission to use it,a alternate is UBCD


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## be4con (Mar 20, 2006)

Thanks Noobus.

I have run the bootsect command, and it hasn't helped. The situation has changed in that I now get the message 

"Insert media into boot drive and press any key to continue" rather than just the black screen.

The boot priority in the bios is my HD, then the cd drive. All other drives are disabled at boot.

I haven't tried any of the Hirens utilities, and in order to avoid offending anyone I won't but if you can recommend a utility on the UBCD I can try then that would be great. 

Any other suggestions as to how I can deal with this would be most appreciated.

Thanks


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## Noobus (Oct 21, 2011)

Sounds like it isn't detecting the OS on the drive.

Give a few boot utilities a go and let us know how you go.

L


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

See it here Ultimate Boot CD - Overview


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## be4con (Mar 20, 2006)

I managed to solve this today! Thanks Noobus.

I ran a couple of boot utilities - BootFix and MBRFix. Neither helped the problem. I then ran Repair MBR in Easus Partition Manager and that solved it.

Everything seems to be running as normal now. 

Thanks again.


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Glad to hear it


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