Vista on Laptop Crash

Vista premium home packard bell desktop cannot restore. Will not boot to c drive. Will boot into Kepersky AV recovery disc, no infections and KAV in ram will parse C and D drives but cannot see documents or windows directories. Cannot boot with recovery cd or vista premium home disc, will go to blank desktop with mouse arrow. Will boot into a windows xp disc and presumably be able to load xp if asked to. But why will it not boot to a vista disc. CPU looks ok memory has been scanned looks ok. Any ideas.

MikeB,

I suggest you try the following regarding your systems restore:

Please verify your Systems Restore is activated:

• Go to My Computer
• Properties
• System Restore
• Highlight C:\Drive
• Settings
• Set the slider to 1% (1095MB)
• Repeat if more than one Hard Drive
• OK
• Reboot

Then proceed to:

• Start
• All Programs
• Accessories
• System Tools
• System Restore
• Follow the promps to create a new restore point
• Reboot and proceed as follows.

Post back with an update if the above works for you

Kind regards,

The laptop does not boot into windows desktop so the operation cannot be done. It will not boot with a recovery disk, and will not reboot into a desktop even with a vista disc. Have checked memory, and also KAV recovery will see C: drive files with the exception of windows directory and documents data.

Hi Mike8,

I am sorry we will need to wait until another volunteer comes by to help, but in the meantime research this link to see if any of the sites assist you. If none of those links help, google your specific problem for assistance in the meantime.

best regards,

Mike, do you have your data backed up? If not, now is a good time to do so. A Puppy Linux Live CD should allow you to do this.

See this post by Happyrck in GeeksToGo: Use Puppy Linux to backup your data

Get the latest Puppy Linux listed, not the one Happyrck mentions as it's no longer available.

Once you have that, boot the Windows XP CD. At the first opportunity, enter R to start the Recovery Console. It says Repair but that is an unfortunate choice of words by MS, that has confused many people over the years. When you get to the Command Prompt, type chkdsk /r and press Enter. It will take quite some time to finish but let it run undisturbed until it does. Try booting Vista now, see what happens.

If that doesn't help, you can try wiping your hard drive and doing a clean restore or install of Vista. There are lots of tools available to do this, but DBAN is one of the best.

It's also possible you are having a hardware problem. If so then none of this will make any difference, except backing up your data so there is no chance of losing it, no matter what happens.

Before you go wiping the hard drive, try stripping your computer down to the bare minimum by removing everything you can, leave just the mouse, keyboard, one stick of ram (remove any others temporarily), any expansion cards. Leave just the DVD drive (if you have more than one, disconnect the 2nd one). Unplug all USB devices, flash cards, printers, scanners, etc. Now try the recovery and Vista Home Premium discs.

Hi Rich Thanks for your help, yes I have booted into winXP disc and selected R and its now doing chkdsk /r. It will take a while no doubt! As this now allows a proper C: prompt (dos boot cdroms dont allow C: guess to old technology) I am then going to try C:/recovery/recovery1.exe or C:/rstrui.exe to see if it can access these files from the vista ones on the laptop. The laptop has preinstalled vista files with recovery partition on D: Its still under warranty so reluctant to go to far like take the drive out!. But mem has been checked and cpu looks good under lynux kepersky recovery in ram. For some strange reason the vista full disk will not boot, or it goes to the yellow stripes loading but doesnt go into the blue do you want to install screen. For technical interest it seems strange that it will boot correctly into a windows xp pro disk but not a vista home premium disk. Mike

Hello, You mention your computer is still under warranty. If you do anything at all to it, you will void that warranty - here with new purchases in Australia that is mandatory. I would check the small print of the warranty agreement before doing another thing if it was my system. Best regards,

Forget the warranty, its gone too far for that. Unable to use a master vista home premium disk. Have used winxp to delete a c partition and reformat drive to clean it, drive is healthy using usual utilities. When I boot from a 'proper' vista disc, it boots, loads files - white bar across the bottom - then the green microsoft bar appears, then goes out to a blank screen. Of course it could be formating which would take for ever on a 250Gb drive. Seems strange. I can use a win xp instal disc and it would work, so why not with a vista one, have tried the vista disc on a desktop and it is ok. Any suggestions, memory, video, screen are ok. Its got paws beat as well

Its still under warranty so reluctant to go to far like take the drive out!.

Why would you forget the warranty? That is why computers have warranties to execute when in trouble.

Its got paws beat as well

I doubt that, linky please?

You may have a happier New Year if you use your warranty.

kind regards,

Hello, I will get Paws to comment separately. Unfortunately, forget the warranty, this has now become an intellectual challenge! Hard drive has been removed and checked it is healthy, it is a SATA one 250GB. I have cleared the C: partition and reintroduced it, and formated the C: system partition. I have left in tact the original smaller partition which carries the Packard Bell recovery data. I have now got the PB master recovery cd1 and cd2 so can either try using that to reinstall the pre-install version. I have also a full windows vista home premium disk, so can do a virgin install that way if required. I have recovered all of my data off of the drive, and it will see Linux live CD's (some of them anyway). I have used mem checker, memory OK, screen looks OK, but for avoidance of doubt I have attached a separate monitor to the rear monitor output and also put in (and it is recognised in POST) as USB mouse for better control. The point is that when using either recovery cd's or virgin vista system cd from boot, it boots up, loads files to RAM, and then goes into the windows vista green bar which works, then it just goes blank on both monitors. However, when experimenting with my WinXP Pro installation disk (streamed to SP3), if I let it go through all the sequences it would actually install XP. XP installations seem a lot more flexible albeit takes longer. Basically I HATE Vista, but am determined to fix this bad boy.

My recommendation is dont let your kids anywhere near your computer, with the stuff they are likely to want to install! To clear all boot partitions, I not only had to clear c:/ partition and quick format using windows xp, I had to actually install windows xp pro (not to activation). Reboot and install a retail copy of vista then it was sweet. M

Mike, glad you got it working but that is really weird. When you did the XP install, did you have to hit F6 to load SATA drivers?

Hi Rich, No (never thought of that) I just let it install XP Pro normally, I used a SP3 slipstreamed disk. Put my XP key in but opted for the activate in 30 days! Didnt do any further updates but did a defrag within XP. Then just put a vista home premium disk in and it booted straight away, and put all the old xp stuff into a folder called windows.old that I can delete later. I havnt even put in the PBell drivers, windows update in Vista found all the devices (no yellow queries when viewing device manager). It was a weird experience, I can only think there was something in the partition ahead of boot that it didnt like. Working fine now in vista, with up to date updates. Vista looks good for the guy that just wants to use the PC but for an IT techy, it hides too many things and you have to find where they are. M

Thanks for the info Mike. Glad all is well, Happy New Year.