Ok, here's what I get when trying to boot into my Windows 7 Ultimate installation:
First, there's something about SLIC LOADER v 1.4.6, followed by a bunch of non informative information and a countdown cursor at the bottom of the screen, starting from 25...
When that reaches zero, I'm transfered to another page that says:
drive 0x80(LBA): C/H/S=14594/255/63, Sector Count/Size=234452610/512
Partition num:0, active, filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
Partition num:1, filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
* * * *
Options if your HDD is larger than 1TB
* Move your boot files to a smaller partition at the start of the HDD
* Format the HDD and allow Windows to create a 100MB boot partition
* Shrink and move your partitions with GParted
Press any key to read more...
_
Pressing any key takes me to the next page:
Options if you have an OEM/Recovery partition:
* Format the whole HDD with Active@ Kill Disk
* If possible use EasyBCD to relocate the boot files
Tools to use:
* EasyBCD to move your boot files
* Active@ Kill Disk (ISO) to format
* GParted to resize, move & create partitions
How to boot back into Windows:
* Boot from your Windows DVD and select "Repair your computer"
* Select Command Prompt
* Enter "bootsect/nt60 SYS/force" or "bootsect/nt60 ALL/force"
* Reboot
Press any key to enter command line...
Next screen is:
[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename. ESC at any time exists.]
grub> _
Finally, pressing ESC takes me to this:
Windows 7/Vista/Server
Windows 7/Vista/Server (No SLIC)
Debug (Default)
Debug (Legacy)
Windows NT/2000/XP
Loader Help
Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to highlight an entry.
Press ENTER or 'b' to boot.
Press 'c' for a command-line.
This occurred after updating to the latest version of my ESET antivirus software...
NOTE that I have never had any other OS apart from Windows 7 installed on my computer.
During the last week I have been running Ubuntu Studio from a live usb.
This is the only external storage device available: a 16GB Kingston USB stick
Only computer available apart from the faulty one is a MacBook Air.
I tried to turn the stick into a bootable Windows 7 USB via BootCamp Assistant and a few Terminal tweaks, but whenever I ran it, I kept getting an error about some corrupt Recycle Bin or something, so I went with the Ubuntu Studio live USB instead.
Now I'm afraid to do anything else with it, 'cause it's the only working OS I got at the moment.
So my two question are: What may have caused all this?
What should I do in order to resolve my predicament?
I'm starting to lean towards formatting my hard drive, but any other ideas would certainly be appreciated.
No installation CDs available.
System details
Motherboard: Gigabyte H55M-UD2H
CPU: Intel Core i7-860
RAM: 8GB
Storage Devices: two Kingston SSDs - one of 120GB (that I 've got Windows installed on, and that's running low on space), and one of 480GB (that I really hope I won't have to format).
