Windows 7 Post Install OSImage Error

Daf42

Senior Member
Firstly, great forum. I regret that my first post is a problem.

I have just made a clean install of Windows 7 and everything went fine. I made a clean install from inside the W7 RC on a new SATA hard disk with a genuine Windows & Home Premium Disk. Installation only took about 30 minutes which I was very pleased with.

Everything seemed to be working fine, but after a few restarts (after installing software etc) "Windows 7" suddenly disappeared from the boot menu and was replaced by "Windows Setup". I get to a low res setup screen with the message "Setup Is Starting" and then after about two minutes I get the dreaded "Windows could not collect information for [OSImage] since the specified image file (install.wim) does not exsit" message! The computer then restarts and gets stuck into a loop.

I have searched on google and on this forum and it seems people get this error during install, not several restarts after.

The last program I installed before this problem was Avast Anti virus, I don't know if that could be causing the problem.

Can anyone help? I would very much appreciate any ideas anyone has,

Many thanks,

David
 
Try changing your boot order to boot from disk, then when you reach the install page choose the repair function instead..
 
Kemical, thanks for your reply.

I have repaired the install, and that gets it to boot into Windows again. However when I had this problem with the RC it would just keep coming back. I figured I would just wait for the RTM and hope that it fixed the problem, but alas it has not.
 
Hmm....I noticed that after rereading you initial post again you said that you 'made a clean install from inside w7 RC'. So from this can i take it that you placed the win 7 DVD in the drive, started the DVD up and then just clicked install at the appropriate time?
If this is the case then it's not really a clean install... To do a proper clean install you must first change the boot order so your machine boots from CD/DVD first and HDD second. Then reboot with the disk in the drive and at the correct time press any key.. You can then either upgrade or choose a 'custom ' install and reformat the drive.. installing win7 after the format.
 
Yes I suppose that is true, but I did not upgrade.

However, I used your method when I installed the RC, and got the same problem.

Again, thanks for your reply
 
Hmm....ok.. Perhaps it is something you either installed or an update is causing the issue.... Have you tried replacing Avast with something different like MSE (microsoft security essentials)
 
I haven't tried replacing Avast, but that's what I will do next if the problem doesn't clear up.

I wasn't aware of MSE, but I was on the Beta program for LiveOneCare which I found pretty good, so I'll check out MSE
 
There's quite a few in the forum using it and initial thoughts are that it's good at what it does... I use it along with Ad-Aware but thats just out of personal choice..

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Doesn't it seem a little strange he had the same problem with the RC? It occurred after installing some software but the problem seems to be somehow the boot loader or MBR was messed up. Hopefully he knows to do a dual boot, you need to load the newest OS last.
 
I have just had the same problem, so I will un-install Avast and replace with MSE.

I can't see why a Motherboard problem would make the Windows & install load, this seems to me to a be a software problem.

I am dual booting, but of course I installed Vista first; some 3 years ago
 
Installing MSE hasn't helped; I get the same problem again.

I can try fixing the master boot record, but there might nor be anything wrong with it.

It would seem that no one else has this problem or a solution
 
As Saltgrass mentioned it seems strange that this problem was apparent in the RC version... What about stuff like your system bios... Is that the latest version? Also it might be a HDD error so I would try running a chkdsk making sure you tick the box to repair broken sectors. If the chkdsk won't complete then your HDD might need replacing..
 
My BIOS isn't up to date and that is something I will try to update.....however I haven't experienced the problem for over a week now so hopefully the problem has fixed itself through a number of updates or repairs.

Many thanks to everyone for your help so far.

-David
 
Let's hope it continues... The bios is perhaps something for the future..:)
 
I have finally solved the problem!! Here is the solution:

I have three partitions, C: (Windows Vista), D: (Windows 7), E: (Files)



My computer could not find the BOOTMGR file. During installation windows 7 creates a partition which houses the installation files, this is where my computer would boot to when it could not find the bootmgr. For some reason when I had the DVD in the drive the computer would find the bootmgr and all would be fine.



In an attempt to solve the problem I changed the boot order of my SATA drives so the Windows 7 drive was first in the BIOS. This also didnt help, but I no longer ended up at the install partition I just got a "boot failure" message. Next I selected the windows 7 partition (D:) as active in disk management, this returned a "BOOTMGR is missing" error during boot.



In the cmd prompt I typed bcdedit, which identified that the boot manager was infact located on drive E:, I then went into the BIOS and changed the boot order so drive E: was first and now my computer works! I have not seen this solution anywhere else on the internet after 10 months of trying!

I hope this helps anyone with the same problem!
 
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