Vista boot / startup issue.

slipd

slipd

slipd

Soldato
Joined
26 Feb 2004
Posts
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Location
Hampshire, England.
Hey guys,

I had a look at a friends vista pc yesterday, it appears her son was installing some software and became frustrated that the installation was either not responding or taking too long to complete. Either way, in his infinite wisdom, he decided to power off manually… Now the machine won't boot!

When you power up, it get to the device summary and indicates a hardware update? "verifying dmi pool update….success"

Then on the next screen they get:

Booting GRLDR...
Resetting the boot drive...

This is followed by a couple of very quickly displayed page of text.

Next, is the standard list of option after a failure: None of them work; Normal gets as far as the ms load screen before loading a black screen and then freezing. Last good does the same.

All of the Safe modes present the same bsod (see pic) before automatically rebooting.



So, can anyone shed some light or help me out with a few ideas? It's a new one on me :(

Cheers,

SW.
 
Thanks guys! I've just been trying the vista dvd out. I think this machine is well and truly beyond recovery...

None of the things on the disc work; the initial scan detects a problem with startup, but can't repair it (see pic).



After the initial scan the os selection window, displaying the vista installation, loses the installation and gives an error, see pic.



The repair startup function of vista itself can't repair anything, so the only thing that does work is the command prompt. However, apart from giving me a description of what each bootrec feature does, I can't seem to progress any further, see pic.



Is that it then, is it rebuild time? I think I'm just going to give it back to them and tell them to get a second opinion or something... A rebuild in this nice weather would be criminal ;)

SW.
 
I've had a very similar problem to this before with Vista...If you search for it I put a solution to it in this forum somewhere...you may have to go back a while as it was last year.
 
I've already done that: botrec /fixmbr and I get the same message...

Seeing as though the installation appears then disapears at the start of windows repair loading, could it be that I need to install some extra motherboard drivers for the hd? It's a sata drive, but its not in raid or anything? Is that worth a shot, when it gives you the option to laod drivers?

SW.
 
All you need to do is boot with the vista DVD, go to repair and use the system restore option and use a restore point before he killed it. Unless your friend was silly enough to turn system restore off...
 
Thanks guys, but I think my main problem is that when the os disappears after the initial scan, I'm stuck... It can't repair what it can't see etc.

I'm just downloading all the hd drivers from the mobo manufacturers site. Got to be worth a shot?

SW.
 
Zap said:
Can you not get to any of the repair options?
Click to expand...
Nope.

Basically this is what happens. In picture form :)

I get this far...



Then this...



Clicking either option doesn't help and I'm back to here, with no os selection available.



And then, once I get to the system recovery tool, I don't have any os or drive :(



I'm stumped!

SW.
 
Can you access the system partition from the Vista boot CD command prompt ?

If so, can you do a "dir" on it just to make sure the relevant folders are present (eg. WINDOWS) ?

Also, what software was being installed when the system was powered off ?
 
I would run a checkdisk if you haven't already. It looks like the filesystem is damaged.

go to the command line and type chkdsk /r
 
Last edited:
Zap said:
I would run a checkdisk if you haven't already. It looks like the filesystem is damaged.

go to the command line and type chkdsk /r
Click to expand...
I can't test anything tonight, but I don't think chkdsk is going to work - cmd can't see the c: drive can it? Is there any way of getting the command prompt up from outside of system recovery?

What's the x: drive btw? Is it the dvd?

I've already forewarned my friend to prepare for the worst... I think we've been beat :p

@Defenestration: I'm going to find out tomorrow what software it is - might help if we know.

Would adding the problem drive to another machine be able to sort anything out? Running chkdsk from there - I'd also all be able to scan it for viruses and malware etc.

Cheers for the response everyone.

SW.
 
chkdsk from the command line will work, it's no different from you putting the disk in another machine and running it :)
 
Looks like your hard disk might be on the blink as well. Have you got another machine you can connect it to to retrive the data off? If the data retrieves ok you may be able to get away with a reformat and reinstallation.

Just my 2 sense.
 
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