TOSHIBA NB550D-111 Recovery problem due to swm error

Question

I own a NB550D-111 (preinstalled W7 Starter SP1 32 bit, av Security Essentials), used mainly for browsing, chat and Skype. Following the july updates, the OS began greeting me with blue screen at every start. I choosed "Startup repair", and after some 20 minutes and one restart, the OS was up and running. The next restart, the same scenario. Every time I ran "Startup repair", sometimes 3 or 4 times to get the system working.
I did a System Restore, but no luck. Still the same blue screen at startup. I ran Check Disc at startup from Command Prompt with /F and /R switches, no errors found. After four days, Startup Repair was unable to solve the blue screen even if I spent almost 4 hours restarting and either choosing Startup Repair or do System Restore.
I went to Restore Factory Settings OS from the recovery partition. I wanted to keep My Documents folder, I changed the location to the second partition). Imagex gave an error at 70% applying the image (a .ttc file that cannot be copied), and after reboot BOOTMGR was missing. I used the usb recovery stick made shortly after I bought the netbook using Toshiba Recovery media creator, wich wiped clean the HDD (eventually lost my files, that's it), re-partitioned and copied the .swm files in the HDDRecovery folder. When applying the image to C: partition, Imagex also gave an error at 70%, the same ttc file.
I installed a clean copy of Starter, installed SP1 and updates and activated online using the serial number from the COA sticker. At first the newly installed OS was incredibly fast (I have only the drivers and Flash Cards installed, no other application from Toshiba), but after the SP1 update the boot time trippled. From my previous experiences with Windows XP, a slipstreamed SP installation of Windows behaves better than one updated with windows update. I'm thinking of a way to reinstall the Toshiba Windows, even full of bloatware as it is, then stop the programs I don't use trough msconfig and services.msc (just as I did in when I bought the netbook).
Message was edited by: bogdanmardare

Answer 1

Update:
I installed WAIK and the supplement for SP1 of Windows 7.
I got errors when saving the modified wim. I needed to change permissions and owner (Trusted Installer) in the Windows folder, and after copying the files restore old permissions. The modified wim was saved but at unmount left behind in exactly the folders I tangled with in Windows folder. The other modified folders were saved with no problems.
So, I tried a modified metod 1:
Downloaded 7-zip portable, expanded and ran once in a folder on the second partition (D:) of the HDD.
Created an USB bootable stick with WinRE image found in the HDDRecovery tools.
Booted from USB, started 7-Zip from command prompt. Opened the SWM file and copied all the files in the second folder to the C: partition. Using 7-Zip as a file manager, I replaced the corrupted files with their good variants stored also on the second partition. This time no problems, all files copied ok, no need to change permissions.
Rebooted from HDD, BOOTMGR missing. Booted from USB, the instalation was found and repaired (in two stages). After another reboot from HDD, I was greeted with the "Preparing your computer for the first use". The factory installation took more than 2.5 hours (installation of drivers in the sysprep phase was very slow), instead of a half hour for a clean installation. At the end of sysprep (just before OOBE phase), after reboot BOOTMGR missing, resolved again as indicated earlier.
It took another 3 hours to uninstall bundled Nero, McAfee and Windows Live +applying updates and installing usual programs.
Hope this will help someone in the same situation.
Regards,
Bogdan