Windows 7 on Boot Camp stuck at black screen with blinking cursor... starts up fine in Parallels desktop
Hi,
Recently my dad's Windows 7 (Ultimate 64-bit) on his Mac Pro has stopped working. It gets stuck at a black screen with a blinking cursor. I've waited at least five minutes and it doesn't do anything, I have to power it off.
However it starts up perfectly fine and intact in Parallels desktop. If I insert the original installation DVD and boot from the Disc that says 'Windows' it will boot into the partition and work fine, unless I press a key to boot from the DVD.
I find both these things to be strange. The partition is backed up, which is fine, but I'd rather not have to re-install it if possible.
I have booted from the DVD and tried to repair the disk. It said it found a problem with something related to startup and that it needed to restart to repair it. I clicked yes, and then held alt/opt and (I think wrongly) booted back into the disc rather than the Windows partition. However it now says that it can't detect any problems.
In the repair my computer section when booting from the DVD, it detects the OS as Windows Vista Business. I followed these steps I found online:
"""""
Fixed! Peroblem was I think using OEM, which Bootcamp advise against using... they advise to use retail only. Fixed like this:
1. Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start your computer.
2. Hold down Option key till all available disks are displayed and select DVD. Press a key when you are prompted.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, a keyboard or an input method, and then 4. click Next.
5. Click Repair your computer.
6. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
7.In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
Type (these commands are safe)
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Code: Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Code: Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
*Press ENTER after each command.*
*Restart your computer.*
Done. Rockin'
"""""
FixMbr was successful, as was FixBoot. However RebuildBcd reported that it found no Windows installations.
Does anyone know what could be wrong here? I should note that recently I removed the drive Windows 7 is installed on and put it back in. Also Windows Updates probably have been done by my dad. Not sure if they could be the problem.