Windows 7 failed to start - understanding the why's

its possible that the acronis restore didn't correctly backup the drivers for one of the devices in the computer, most likely a Hard Drive

This in turn wouldn't let the computer boot, and using the repair feature reinstalled the drivers

I agree with the above. Also it is possible that the original backup had a flaw. There is a one in two chance that recovery DVD's purchased from Lenovo will not work. Bad manufacture in their case. So it could have been the equivalent of bad manufacture in the case above.

Since when was the backup created?
The causes are two:
1)The backup was taken when the drive was configured as Compatible or SATA in BIOS and after taking backup it was configured as AHCI
2)Acronis did set the incorrect partition active which is usual for Acronis. With Recovery options you copied the boot data to correct active partition and made it boot.

@nobus @nocho the disk id changed ergo it couldn't find the o/s to boot ergo the boot error.  Some backup/restore software has the option to keep the older disk GUID

Acronis does not keep it. If some new or unknown backup tool was used - I would agree with you. But Acronis is developing backup software not the first year. And thousands of users who use this software do not claim the same problem.
Plus the way Windows start works - after Post screen - search for HDD, when HDD found - search for active partition, when active partition found - search for boot files on it. If not boot files found give an error - no system drive was found.
I noticed that with Acronis this problem occurred when the BootMgr was located on non active partition or was not imaged at all.

Wow - lots of great suggestions. I'm going to start ruling out suspects like RAM by downloading UBCD. I will post back.

The backup was created in 2011, and I doubt that the user has enough knowledge to switch disk mode. It was set at RAID from the factory, and not AHCI.

I noticed that the Windows Startup Repair function only needed one pass to correct the error. In the past, I've had instances where it too 3 passes.

Thank you.

Does Windows see only one HDD in system?

Yes, there is only one physical HD. it's partitioned into C: and F: (backup of data is kept here). Strangely, it also shows System Reserved (D:). I believe this is the 100MB partition that Windows creates when it installs.

And I'm pretty certain that when I did the restore, I set the target partition as Primary and Active.

You did set the one which is MSR active, right? Why does it have the drive letter? Usually it is not mounted.

Hi, I'm assuming MSR stands for Microsoft Reserved partition. When I restored from Acronis Backup, I told it to restore to the OS partition (correct). I also told it to make it "Primary" (correct, I think), and also set it to "Active (incorrect?)"

Should I NOT have made the OS partition "Active"?. Is this where I went wrong? So the MSR 100MB partition is the partition that is "Active"?

To complicate things, I did at some point restore the "MBR something" in Acronis as well, but that didn't seem to help.

I see. I think I'm beginning to understand. So that I can understand further..

1. During the Acronis backup procedure, if I choose to backup the MBR, it's basically backing the MSR 100MB partition, correct?

2. How do I hide the MSR partition in Windows so that someone can't accidentally write to it? Right now, it's showing up in Windows Explorer. I've unchecked the "Show hidden filed and folders".

3. If I encounter the same problem in the future, is there a quick way to fix the problem w/o having the Windows 7 install disc?

So please help me understand what the MBR does as part of the following process:

Plus the way Windows start works - after Post screen - search for HDD, when HDD found - search for active partition, when active partition found - search for boot files on it.

it looks strange to me that acronis removes the active tag
i use the free paragon soft, and never had that problem
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/download.html

MBR contains the information about location of partitions on the HDD and their seizes, file system type. It also contains record of Windows Boot Manager, a loader which starts Windows at all. The files of this Boot Manager are usually on Active partition (MSR in your case) such as BootMgr.
Detailed information about MBR can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
Frankly speaking you do not need to know much about MBR. If you forget to backup it then nothing serious occurs. UpdateMBR command (FIXMBR) writes the default Windows MBR to the HDD if the HDD is brand new and had no partition yet.

I've learned quite a bit from this exchange, and I thank everyone involved.

As a general question, do you like Acronis? I don't mind paying for a program that's reliable and has a simple interface.

if only for making personal images - you can use many free alternatives, like paragon, easus etc
they do work as well, and i'm using paragon for about 2 years now - before i used Acronis (but had to pay for it)
works easy and fast

For a home use and maintenance I would suggest Hard Disk Manager 15 Suite from Paragon. The boot cd has a range of tools to investigate and maintain problems with PC. Although the Backup and Recovery 14 Free for imaging and recovery is also enough.

OK - thanks again to all. I generally don't like installing stuff on my OS. Can Paragon Suite be booted and used from a CD?

sure you can  - with all of them

You need first to install it to create the vootable cd or usb stick. Then you can uninstall it. But personally I would use it to run a scheduled backups per week or at least per month. CD is for the cases when system wont boot.

to hide the MSR load diskmgmt.msc and remove the drive letter.