Windows 7 - Lost administrator access after failed upgrade
I just tried to upgrade my windows 7 RC installation to Windows 7 RTM yesterday, and halfway through the upgrade, it failed, with a message that said something like "the file does not exist, setup cannot continue" I was installing off of a slave drive on the system, not a disc. I can still boot to my drive, use most programs, but anything that requires administrator control i cannot. I can't open the C: Drive, i can open documents but cannot copy them or recycle them, Cannot open a administrative command prompt, cannot take ownership of the drive, heck - i can't even see the size and/or free space of the drive.
Any ideas? Thanks!
Any ideas? Thanks!
ASKER
Actually, Win7 RC to RTM is supposed to be allowed, and can be accomplished sucessfully with a modification in the cversion.ini file in the \sources folder.
I have since installed a new hard drive, loaded Win7 RTM on it from scratch, slaved the old drive, but still cannot access it. Booting to winpe produces the same problem as if i try to access the drive from any command prompt, "C: is not accessible, Acess is denied."
Also, see windows screenshot.
Capture2.JPG
I have since installed a new hard drive, loaded Win7 RTM on it from scratch, slaved the old drive, but still cannot access it. Booting to winpe produces the same problem as if i try to access the drive from any command prompt, "C: is not accessible, Acess is denied."
Also, see windows screenshot.
Capture2.JPG
Try with TAKEOWN command from an elevated prompt
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Yes, you modified cversion.ini to a different build code to fool the upgrade check, however, it is still not supported:
http://blogs.technet.com/h
If you have an XP box lying around, you try hooking up the drive and taking ownership of the files. However, it looks you can't even get information on the volume, which would indicate to me that you have volume/file system corruption and not necessarily a security issue. If you go into disk management, does the volume show as healthy, damaged, unknown?
http://blogs.technet.com/h
If you have an XP box lying around, you try hooking up the drive and taking ownership of the files. However, it looks you can't even get information on the volume, which would indicate to me that you have volume/file system corruption and not necessarily a security issue. If you go into disk management, does the volume show as healthy, damaged, unknown?
ASKER
After everything i tried, that worked perfectly. This guy knows his windows 7. I tried the something similar from xp, which did not work, and i figured it would not work on Win 7.
Whether or not the cversion.ini was modified is a moot point - and always was as far as I was concerned. I don't believe we should ever be in the role of the accuser, regardless of the situation. The OP admitted to nothing yet was accused - "Yes, you modified..." -- there simply is no foundational basis for this conclusion.
My testing -- the system was unable obtain volume information on a perfectly healthy drive and the cause was absolutely security related. Take a peak inside a setuperr log during installation sometime. The 0x80070005 error code that I found says it all. The entry -
2009-06-26 15:42:24, Error [0x060163] IBS GatherRegionInfo: GatherVolumeInfo failed, hr = 0x80070005[gle=0x000036b7]
jcgriff2
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@ bytespeed
THANK YOU for the kind words. I am glad it worked for you.
JC
Whether you agree with me or not is a moot point. RC to RTM upgrades are not supported by Microsoft as stated at the link above and can lead to unpredictable results such as this one.
I suggest booting from a WinPE disc and copying your files off to your slave drive, then wipe and reload RTM.