Error booting Windows 7 system: "<random name> is compressed / Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"
Solution 1:
Windows 7 Boot Error: "some file" is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart
After switching on your computer or after restarting Windows 7 you receive the error ‘filename’ is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart on a black screen with white writing when trying to boot into Windows.
The ‘filename’ is different on different systems but the following have been reported:
BootMgr is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. QXHDK is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. NTLDR is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. DFJEU is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. VUFEI is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart. DGKAR is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.Explanation
A bug in Windows 7 file compression is causing this problem. We can solve the problem by decompressing the hard disk as shown below.
Decompress using Windows System Recovery menu
- Boot to the Windows System Recovery Options screen. If you don’t know how to do that the see this article: Windows 7 or Vista System Recovery Options
On the System Recovery Options screen click LOAD DRIVERS button.
On the left, click Computer. You should now see your Local Disk C: on the right.
- Right click Local Disk C: and click Properties.
- At the bottom of the properties box, deselect the box that says Compress this drive to save space.
- Another window will pop up asking you to confirm the attribute change. (the windows might get a bit messy so you’ll just have to move them around the screen so you can see them properly)
- Select Apply changes to drive C:, subfolder and files and click OK
- Now I would suggest waiting. You will not see a progress dialog as it uncompresses the drive so give it a few minutes until your hard disk stops showing activity.
- When finished, cancel all remaining dialog boxes and restart the computer.
Source Windows 7 Boot Error: ‘some file’ is compressed. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart
Solution 2:
The first stage of the Windows bootloader cannot read compressed NTFS files. These files include BOOTMGR and NTLDR, which are used for the second stage of the Windows boot process. If they are in fact compressed, an error message like the following would be returned:
[NTLDR|BOOTMGR] is compressed
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
Try booting from a Windows installation or recovery disk, then use the command prompt to decompress the files—running COMPACT/U /I NTLDR BOOTMGR DZNRX on the root directory of the system partition might fix the problem. If required, repeat the process for any other files the system complains about.