Vista loads but then it wont do anything

Please advise! I have Vista Ultimate 64bit. Vista will boot up and load. The screen is populated with icons. However this is all that it will do. The side bar only stays black and loads nothing else. The cursor only shows the thinking circle when I go over the sidebar. It wont boot up the network (no internet access or other network computers) or any program that I attempt to click on. If I happen to get anything to load it's only a blank window and goes no further (except for documents folder). It locks up the window until I hit Ctrl +alt+ Del and get to task manager to cancel. The only thing I have been able to do is to get to my documents folder and view items. I attempted to copy some files to an external hard drive but It wont even do that.
The only program I have been able to access is Microsoft Security Essentials. It wants to run an update but it's stuck (I guess possibly because the network is not working???). I checked out the computer hardware by running a Kubuntu live CD in trial mode and I was able to access internet, etc during this test. In Kubuntu from the live CD - ALL hardware worked as it is supposed to. In fact I was able to view my C drive and all its files and folders. So I know that the system hardware is not an issue. Unless it's a hard drive issue. (By the way I do NOT double boot I only run Vista on the machine with the issue; therefore, It can't be a conflict with another OS.)

Also, I cant get vista to run in safe mode either. It tries to load then gives me a error message: "Cannot Display This Video Mode". I was attempting to run in safe mode in an attempt to run Antivirus to see if I have a virus or not. But not even safe mode will work.

I even attempted to run the repair option from the original Vista installation CD. Again NO luck.

My system info: ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo motherboard, Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 CPU @2.83GHz, Crucial 8GB DDR2PC2 ram, 750GB HD.

Thanks for any advice.

Do you have the Vista installation disc?

Tom

Yes. And I already tried running the repair option from the Vista instalation CD. It didnt fix the problem. In fact I did that first. After that I have a Kubuntu live cd that has a disk check function that I used to test to see if the HD was bad or not. The diagnostic came back fine. No errors were found. I then ran kubuntu from the live cd (without installing) and tested the network card and the rest of the hardware. Everything comes back ok for the hardware. I did notice that the cpu temp was running at 125 F for idleing. Could it be a possible overheating issue? I do not overclock it (dont really know how or need to) and I dont do gaming but I do 3d drawing occassionally. But most of the time my wife uses it for internet and facebook, and LOTS of kids pictures, kids schooling and some streaming videos.

My wife will have a fit if I lose all her photos of the kids. The backup software in windows has not been running properly it keeps hanging up and never finishes a backup. So I dont have the option of reformatting.

Thanks for any suggestions any one may have.

jredmartin said:

Yes. And I already tried running the repair option from the Vista instalation CD. It didnt fix the problem. In fact I did that first. After that I have a Kubuntu live cd that has a disk check function that I used to test to see if the HD was bad or not. The diagnostic came back fine. No errors were found. I then ran kubuntu from the live cd (without installing) and tested the network card and the rest of the hardware. Everything comes back ok for the hardware. I did notice that the cpu temp was running at 125 F for idleing. Could it be a possible overheating issue? I do not overclock it (dont really know how or need to) and I dont do gaming but I do 3d drawing occassionally. But most of the time my wife uses it for internet and facebook, and LOTS of kids pictures, kids schooling and some streaming videos.

My wife will have a fit if I lose all her photos of the kids. The backup software in windows has not been running properly it keeps hanging up and never finishes a backup. So I dont have the option of reformatting.

Thanks for any suggestions any one may have.

Click to expand...

Do you have an external hard drive?

Tom

Since you can't do anything use another computer and burn this onto a disk then boot from it and run a scan

AVG Antivirus and Security Software - AVG Rescue CD here is the download

Hope This Helps,
Josh

tom982: Yes I have an external HD. However when this problem came up it was not plugged in. I had it plugged into another computer attempting to locate some files from another computer.

Shadowjk: Thanks, I will give it a try tonight.

Shadowjk
I tried the AGV rescue disk and it said that it found a virus that was saved in two separate locations on the HD. But it was a program called infrarecorder that I use to burn .iso files to cd's/dvd's. I have been using that program for several years on different computers and never had this problem. After I ran AVG I rebooted: but the computer still had the same problems as my original post states. Would it help to run vista installation cd's repair option again?

I'm considering getting a new (larger) HD and doing a fresh install of vista on it and/or upgrading to win7. Then relegating this one as a back up after documents transfer has been made and reformatting it as an internal backup drive. That is if I cant get this one working without losing documents, drafting files and picture data.

Has the threat been deleted?

Josh

Yes - I let AVG delete infrarecorder but after the deletion and then a reboot it didnt make any differance. If I attempt to load a program it only brings up a blank window and then the curser only shows the thinking circle for several minutes. It will not let me close the window without going Ctrl+Alt+Del and opening task manager and closing it from there. At least It will let me do that.

It's weird in that it will let me do things like that but not allow me to do other things like copy files to my external HD or close non-working windows.

Any suggestions? If I attempt to reinstall vista from the instalation CD will it also erase my documents files?

jredmartin said:

Yes - I let AVG delete infrarecorder but after the deletion and then a reboot it didnt make any differance. If I attempt to load a program it only brings up a blank window and then the curser only shows the thinking circle for several minutes. It will not let me close the window without going Ctrl+Alt+Del and opening task manager and closing it from there. At least It will let me do that.

It's weird in that it will let me do things like that but not allow me to do other things like copy files to my external HD or close non-working windows.

Any suggestions? If I attempt to reinstall vista from the instalation CD will it also erase my documents files?

Click to expand...

That depends. When reinstalling an OS, you have two options:

1. Format the hard drive and do a clean install (removes absolutely everything)
2. Save all of the old files into a file that can later be opened to get the files back and reinstall the programs.

What I would recommend, is booting into Linux and copying all of the files that you want onto your external hard drive. Then do a clean install (option 1) which will format your hard drive and reinstall windows. This option will guarantee that the problem is solved (assuming that it is software related).

Do you need help reinstalling Windows? Or are you confident about doing a clean install?

Tom

tom982
Thanks for the advice. This is my line of thinking also but I wanted to get all my options laid out before reformatting anything. I will try to get the files transferred using Linux tonight. Also, my wife has some web site bookmarks saved in Internet Explorer that are links to her educational/school sites she uses quite often in teaching the kids. Is there a way to copy all the bookmark files over as well? Where exactly can I find them in the computer without IE working. She is griping about having to use my kubuntu laptop for getting onto the internet without her bookmarks (and she has hundreds of them). She's values those as much as our kids pictures. And she's just not comfortable running in a Linux OS.

Now when I get to the point of reinstalling Vista: how do I get it to re-format/format? After inserting the Vista install cd. Do I just select the install Vista option and it gives me the format option automatically or do I have to manually reformat somehow? I have only installed vista once about two and a half years ago and I dont remember anything about the process.

Thanks Again!
JMartin

jredmartin said:

tom982
Thanks for the advice. This is my line of thinking also but I wanted to get all my options laid out before reformatting anything. I will try to get the files transferred using Linux tonight. Also, my wife has some web site bookmarks saved in Internet Explorer that are links to her educational/school sites she uses quite often in teaching the kids. Is there a way to copy all the bookmark files over as well? Where exactly can I find them in the computer without IE working. She is griping about having to use my kubuntu laptop for getting onto the internet without her bookmarks (and she has hundreds of them). She's values those as much as our kids pictures. And she's just not comfortable running in a Linux OS.

Now when I get to the point of reinstalling Vista: how do I get it to re-format/format? After inserting the Vista install cd. Do I just select the install Vista option and it gives me the format option automatically or do I have to manually reformat somehow? I have only installed vista once about two and a half years ago and I dont remember anything about the process.

Thanks Again!
JMartin

Click to expand...

Your favourites are located at:

C:\Users\*YOUR USERNAME HERE*\Favourites

But you just need to copy that whole folder.

That will copy every favourite that is saved in IE, be that in the favourites bar at the top, or the favourites menu that can be shown on the left.


It is probably easier for you (and me) if you read this tutorial:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117366-clean-install-full-version-vista.html

Follow all of these steps (especially the Format option).

Make sure that you have backed up everything that you want, because after this format, you won't be able to access it.

Tom