Windows 7 Recovery Disk: Operating System Isn't Found

Jayant,

Thanks for your reply.

I have scoured the internet - but, no one knows why the operating system is not in the list box.

Do you know why the operating system is not listed in the list box?

Thanks,

True

Hello TrueRock,

Thank you for keeping us updated about the issue.

I really appreciate your efforts towards resolving the issue.

In accordance to your screenshot, the System Recovery options list the operating systems that are to be recovered from the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) or in other way, restored from an image in the HDD.

On the other hand, the recovery disc is used to restore the image of the Operating System when booted from the disc, i.e., in a no boot situation (or in a bootable situation), you have to boot from the disc to recover from the image stored in the disc. So, you won't find the operating system listed in the System Recovery options if you are recovering an image from the disc. Also, when you are restoring the image from the disc, you may have to change the priority order of bootable media to Recovery disc (CD/DVD), so as to boot from the disc.

I hope this information is helpful. Please get back to us if you need further assistance, we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you.

Ramesh,

Thanks for your reply.

I am thoroughly familiar with the way System Restore, Recovery and Repair works.  I need no information in regard to those procedures.

Why is my Windows 7 operating system (which operates perfectly) not listed in the operating system list-box of the System Recovery Options dialog box?  It appears that this function has never worked correctly and has been confusing people for many years.

Thanks

By the way... I believe your statement:

"So, you won't find the operating system listed in the System Recovery options if you are recovering an image from the disc."

is not correct. 

The intention... to Restore, Recover and/or Repair an operating system has no bearing whatsoever on whether an operating system would be displayed in the list-box.  The list-box should list all operating systems on any accessible and potentially bootable hard drive on the PC.

*********************

Here is a bootrec /scanos showing the Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit installation that System Recovery Options does not list in the Operating System list-box.

Hello TrueRock,

Thank you for your reply.

Going through the issue description and conversation so far I understand that, you are trying to test your recently created Windows 7 recovery disc. In the process of doing so you noticed that, System recovery tool indicates you to select and operating system to proceed with repair, but since there is no operating system listed, you can’t proceed with it, whereas the operating system is fully functional. 

What appears to be the reason for operating system not being listed in system recovery tool is probably the partition contacting system files is not marked Active.

Let’s follow the steps below and Mark the system partition active from command prompt and check if that solves the problem.

To Mark partition Active press Shift F10 (Or the key or set of keys applicable in your computer) at first screen when booting DVD or Repair CD, or choose Command Line from Repair Console's Recovery Tools list.

Type the following command and press ENTER after each command.

DISKPART

LIST DISK

SELECT DISK 0 (confirm from list this is Windows 7 HD Number)

LIST PARTITION

SELECT PARTITION # (replace # with Windows 7 partition Number)

ACTIVE

EXIT

Now return to Recovery Tools and check if Operating system is listed there.

Note: Don't mark a partition as active if it doesn't contain the loader for an operating system. Doing so will cause your computer to stop working.

Hope this helps. Please let us know the status. Feel free to write us back in case you face any other issue with Windows in future, we are here to help.

Mann,

Thank you for your reply.

I'm editing this reply to add a comment I forgot to make at the beginning:

The partition containing the system-files is the boot-partition.  Confusingly, the system-partition contains the boot-files.  This has always been a confusing Microsoft convention.

Mann_Manohar, I think you are suggesting that I mark the boot-partition as active (thereby unmarking the system-partition as active).  This would be a non-standard procedure and even if it worked would create more questions than it answered.  Currently my system-partition (which contains the boot-files) is correctly flagged as active.

The bootrec /scanos in the screen-print above clearly shows that the OS is easily

detectable via the Windows 7 Recovery Disk - but, the System Recovery Options

dialog is not able to see it.

I have an Intel DZ77GA-70K system board in my PC. 

That system board has UEFI firmware.

But, the primary HDD (a Intel 520 SSD) was set-up by Windows 7 installation with a legacy MBR.

It is not using a GUID Partition Table (GPT).

Given that the SSD is using legacy MBR, I would expect less problems with Windows 7 Recovery.

It its current state, the partition boots perfectly with no problems.

So, I don't think it is a good idea to mark partitions on the SSD as active. 

For some reason I think UEFI firmware does not support "active" on legacy MBR partitions.

Although, note on the Disk Manager screen print below that the "System Reserved" partition is marked "Active"... that's odd.

I assume it is the Windows 7 64-bit sp1 installation I performed when I installed Windows that did not mark the partitions active.

So I hesitate to mess with that.

As I see it, the Windows 7 Recovery Disk is defective. 

I'm guessing that Windows 7 64-bit has limited UEFI support and

Windows 7 products are obsolete in that regard.

So... OK, Windows 7 recovery is defective and doesn't work with UEFI in some situations.

If Microsoft doesn't want to fix the problem it should at least update Windows 7

documentation to show that Windows 7 Recovery does not support UEFI.

Or, at least clue in the Microsoft support techs so they are aware of what is going on.

Or perhaps I don't understand what is going on?

I will be so happy when legacy BIOS, legacy MBT and legacy 512-byte sector emulation dies.

DISKPART> detail disk

ATA INTEL SSDSC2CW24 SCSI Disk Device
Disk ID: DD69449A
Type   : SATA
Status : Online
Path   : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#ATA(C00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : Yes
Pagefile Disk  : Yes
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : Yes
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 3         System Rese  NTFS   Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System
* Volume 4     C   C_Drive      NTFS   Partition    223 GB  Healthy    Boot

DISKPART> detail vol

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
* Disk 0    Online          223 GB      0 B

Read-only              : No
Hidden                 : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy            : No
Offline                : No
BitLocker Encrypted    : No
Installable            : Yes

Volume Capacity        :  223 GB
Volume Free Space      :   77 GB

DISKPART> detail part

Partition 2
Type  : 07
Hidden: No
Active: No
Offset in Bytes: 105906176

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 4     C   C_Drive      NTFS   Partition    223 GB  Healthy    Boot

C:\Users\Xxxx>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {b823b1eb-9614-11e1-abb0-8a5a99b7fde4}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 7
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {b823b1ed-9614-11e1-abb0-8a5a99b7fde4}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {b823b1eb-9614-11e1-abb0-8a5a99b7fde4}
nx                      OptIn
bootlog                 No

Hello TrueRock,

Thank you for your reply and apology for the delayed response.

• Have you checked using the disk to any other Windows 7 computer? Does system recovery options shows the disk?

Possibly, the Windows 7 recovery disk is defective, I would suggest you to create a new System repair disc.

Refer the Microsoft article below to create a new system repair disc.

Create a system repair disc.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/create-a-system-repair-disc

Hope this information is helpful. Feel free to write back to us in case you face any other issue with Windows, we’ll be glad to assist.

Mann_Manohar,

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes, I tested the recovery disk in a Compaq notebook computer that does NOT have an UEFI BIOS.  It worked correctly on that computer.

The link in your post does not work.  But, regardless... I'm not sure how I could screw up making a recovery disk.  Basically, click 1 button...

Thanks

Hello TrueRock,

Thank you for your reply and I appreciate the time taken by you in providing us all the details about the issue.

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system). This standard was created by over 140 technology companies as part of the UEFI consortium, including Microsoft. It's designed to improve software interoperability and address limitations of BIOS.

UEFI provides Better security by helping to protect the pre-startup or pre-boot process against bootkit attacks, faster startup times and resuming from hibernation, support for drives larger than 2.2 terabytes (TB), support for modern, 64-bit firmware device drivers that the system can use to address more than 17.2 billion gigabytes (GB) of memory during startup, and capability to use BIOS with UEFI hardware.

For information on UEFI Mode please refer the article below.

Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS Mode.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825112.aspx

For the issue “why the exiting operating system on your computer is not getting detected by the system recovery tool’, I would suggest you to contact your computer manufacturer to check the settings on the computer or a hardware diagnostic performed.

Feel free to write back to us for any further assistance, we’ll be glad to assist you.

Mann_Manohar,

I built the computer using an Intel system board.

I'm reasonably ceartain that this is a defect in the Windows 7 Repair Disk process.

Even though the Repair Disk cannot see the OS from the OS select dialog,

bootrec /scanos can detect the OS.

Therefore the Windows 7 Repair Disk process is obviously defective.

The link on UEFI you propose was interesting - thanks. 

Unfortunately it is littered with grammatical errors and does not explain the background of its assertions.  I think it is saying that the Windows 8 and Windows 7 installation process is defective and does not properly determine the status of BIOS versus UEFI installations and that the operator must manipulate the installation process to make it work correctly for some unidentified system boards.  Regardless, I don't think that information applies to my Intel system board.  I correctly performed a legacy-BIOS Windows 7 installation on an Intel UEFI system board.

This is not an issue that applies to me:

"If you install Windows using the wrong mode, you won’t be able to use the features of that firmware mode without reformatting the drive."

I can fully utilize the system board firmware in either UEFI or legacy-BIOS mode.  My Intel system board is currently set to boot using legacy-BIOS mode and the Windows 7 operating system boots correctly.