Windows will not start and cannot be reinstalled

Question

I have a 300GB Win 7 partition on disk 2 on my Mac Pro (set up using Bootcamp) that was running fine until a few days ago.  There were some "critical updates" that Windows installed, followed by a restart.  Now, it simply refuses to start.  When I boot into the Apple drive (disk 1), I get a message in OS X saying that the volume did not mount correctly; interestingly enough, another NTFS partition (used for data only) on drive 3 is also reported as unmountable. 
I tried the following:
1.  Reformatted drive 2 as one partition with Bootcamp and started a fresh installation of Windows - it failed by not allowing the Windows installer to run (hangs up after the logo).
2.  Reformatted drive 2 as one partition and restored a previously good image of the drive using Winclone.  It verified correctly and mounted properly in OS X (I can view the files).  However after I restart and select the Windows HD to boot, it shows the green bars upon Windows start and then hangs up with a black screen.
3.  Booting up with the Windows 7 Recovery disc to attempt repair.  It failed with an error: unable to repair - contact Administrator.
4.  Booting up with the Windows 7 Recovery disc to restore using an image created with Windows 7.  The operation was successful, but the restored partition still hangs up in the same place.
In short, Windows won't start up and I can't reinstall it either!
I can't help but think there is something wrong outside of the NTFS partitions (boot partition?), somewhere in the OS X partition.  Is there a "secret" Bootcamp partition/file that could be corrupted and cause this? Can anyone help me troubleshoot this?

Answer 1

OS X has its own read-only NTFS.
Which version of OS X? and I was trying to find if you installed 3rd party NTFS driver for OS X? some don't work, and need to be upgraded too.
Mac has EFI and if you use Alt or Option it doesn't have abilty to mount or modify but it does 'peek' for valid boot volumes.
Windows 7 - normally you will have 100MB partition (with 32MB used) which is actually where/what Windows boots from.
Install of Windows w/o BCA and w/o OS X being present avoids any conflict, but very often OS X's control panel for Startup Disk won't see Windows. Boot Camp control panel in Windows though always works for seeing both.
I think just the process of setting the default OS could mess up something, and that is the only place or time.
I don't have Lion. Maybe at some point. Intrigued with Parallels 7 support too.
Some people use to have a Recovery disc instead of an installer. I assumed that was what you had rather than the one you burned. Is that WinRE? Paragon has updated theirs to  WinRE 3.0.
While Windows 7 is running and updated, did you install any Apple drivers, and if so, which? is this 3.0 thru 3.3? there seems to be trouble with 3.0 and 3.3, so 3.2 seems best. If Lion then 4.0 (and with the live download the issues that another Mac Pro owner had the first week Lion came out trying to use 4.0 was just a disaster and he went back to 3.2. Lately, it 'seems' that BC 4.01 drivers in Windows are okay or safe to use.  Thanks to the public testing guys! sorry had to put you through that I guess?
So between steps  #2 and #3 was Boot Camp drivers installed? they are helpful but not 100% essential, but does add a timesynch and osswitcher to Windows which are.  The rest of it.... iffy.
AppleHFS for Windows was buggy and one of the reasons for 3.1 and 3.2, or using Paragon HFS driver for Windows which is what I use and how I access HFS drives and works fine. And they have had a solid NTFS driver for OS X, but may want to check and Google for - some had trouble it seems, and any driver needs to be retuned for Lion or any OS update sadly.