A few days ago, my computer was spontaneously unplugged (instant power out). Since then it won't boot. It says something to the nature of "no bootable media found insert proper boot device." Just to get this out there, there are no USB drives plugged in or anything like that. I even selected the proper hard drive in the boot menu to be sure, and it still says the same thing.
"Great...," I thought, now I have to repair the operating system, but noticed that I could run start up repair, so I tried that first. It gets through it, but doesn't fix the issue and the same problems persist. Next (since I didn't have my Windows key at the time) I pulled the hard drive, plugged it into my wife's laptop, and after a quick use of "ProduKey" to get my OS key, ran a Chkdsk /f /r on it.
After going through all the motions it found, what it stated, to be no problems with the volume. None at all. "Okay, okay, I finally gave up," I'll "repair over the top." When getting the product key with "ProduKey" I was able to verify that my OS version was, in fact, "Windows 7 Home Premium SP1," (and I know it was 64-bit, as well) so, I inserted the appropriate disc (also says "Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit. I continued to boot the live CD but as soon as it comes up (maybe after the first screen, I can't remember) it proceeds to tell me that the version on the CD is not compatible with the version that is installed.
Wait... What?
I'd never been hit with this before (having the exact same versions and all). Clearly I'm missing something here.
Can something be corrupted enough to cause this phantom incompatibility or are there more accurate versions? What next step should I take?
Things To Note:
- I haven't yet tried to clear malware as I would have to take it back out and run Malwarebytes, HitmanPro, etc. externally.
- The brand of hard drive I have is Western Digital for which I have a bootable CD that can test it, but now, even though it never has before in the years I've owned it, has decided to spontaneously complain about some licensing issue, so no go there either.
- The OS CD that I am trying to repair from, while appears to be the same version, did not actually come with my computer (I actually didn't get a CD (drivers, OS, or any other) with my tower. The OS CD does, however, have the original Microsoft label and info (e.g., it is not just some burned copy that got mislabeled).
As always, any help is very much appreciated.
