Invalid system disk error message using Windows 7 Ultimate

[lgg622]

I was using my computer and it rebooted (I didn't reboot it) and when it came back on, I got this message:

"Invalid system disk, replace the disk and then press any key."

I have a lot of data on the disk and do not want to lose it. It is a SATA hard drive 500 GB and I am using Windows 7 Ultimate as my operating system. One other thing, prior to my system crashing, Windows 7 had been doing an update in the background as I was working on a Word file and printing on some DVD's with my printer.

any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[JMMD]

Make sure you don't have any external drives plugged in and make sure you're booting from the correct drive if there's more than one installed.

Put the drive into another machine and do a backup of your files. You should have everything backed up on a regular basis, when things like this happen you'll wish you had one.

After you're all backed up, try running check disk on the drive using the Windows recovery console.

 

[tipstir]

7 U 64 has good startup recovery built-into the OS. Don't use the system restore feature though. Just have it fix the startup files on your HDD. That should have triggered. Or your HDD has to run CHKDSK C: /F.

Remove all DVD from the optical drives. Pull out the USB cables also except for the mouse and keyboard.