completely hosed?

completely hosed? Vista booting problems

It's not often I admit defeat but this one has got me. A friend came to me with her laptop, Vista wouldn't start. The usual "maybe it has a virus?"

The machine is a DELL XPS M1530 - T9300 core2duo, 4GB RAM with a screen to die for - 1920x1200 on a 15.4" chassis. I'm jealous...

So here's the symptoms and where I'm at so far. Plug in power, switch on, POST runs, tells me it's a DELL F2 for Setup F12 for boot options (diagnostics are in there) blah blah blah. When that is done, goes immediately to black screen with tiny white flashing line in top left and that's it. BIOS Diagnostics say all is well. No boot options of any kind - it looks like we've lost the HD boot sector at the very least.

Removed HD, plugged it into my tower, ran chkdsk, bad sectors so we went out and bought a replacement. Ran HDClone to copy the old drive (320MB) onto the new (500MB). chkdsk /B on the new disk doesn't find any bad sectors so we're good to go but it won't boot. Same black screen with white flashing cursor.

Recovery disk.

Vista startup repair from the Vista DVD runs successfully but rebooting gives a black screen with white flashing cursor.

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
= black screen with white flashing cursor.

I've run back through with the startup repair from the install disk, nothing. Chkdsk'ed all the partitions (successfully) including the DELL MediaDirect thing that apparently can destroy boot sectors... set each partition active one by one in diskpart, it just won't do anything apart from the black screen. I can boot from a cd, I can boot from a USB stick... from the hard-drive it's black screen each time

So we're looking at a Vista reinstall

I log in using Ubuntu - everything is still there as it should be, it looks like a c: drive, all files are there, I'm just backing them up.

I have a couple of questions.

1.) Given that I can't get Vista to boot is there any way I can run a Vista "upgrade" install? I think that when the old hard drive went bad, what's missing is system files. Apparently it was complaining of missing dlls in the last few days. I reckon if I can find out which files are missing and drag them of the install dvd it will work... Running Vista install from boot media over-writes the whole OS, doesn't allow an upgrade installation. Is there sneaky work-around?

2.) Failing that - how do I back up settings and so on? Can I backup registry and other settings so that we can just bring them back when the machine is set up again?

This is turning into a ballache and any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Hi.

At times technology makes us invest a lot of time in resolving/fixing. Here is what we can do to isolate the issue.

Let’s first run the diagnostics on the computer to check if the hardware is working fine.

To run the diagnostics turn off the computer then press and hold then FN down then turn on the computer and keep holding the FN key down. Let the test complete and check if it provides any error message.

Yes you can try to do a repair installation and check if it all the files are present. Please use the following link for detailed instructions: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html

Please post back with the results.

Hi Madhur,

I am currently re-installing Vista. Once that is done I will run the FN start. I know that the old hard-drive was faulty and had bad sectors. There is also a problem with one of the memory sticks, I believe. I already ran the diagnostics that are available when you hit F12 - one of the options after that is Diagnostics and it ran through a full set of tests there.

As for the Repair Install for Vista:

"1. While logged in Vista as an administrator..."

how do I do that if all there is, is a black screen with a white flashing line? Windows hasn't started because the boot sector is damaged and I can't get it to repair. I've tried fixing mbr & fixboot but I think the files that are damaged are the files that are THEN run to boot the system. Unfortunately I can't find what files those are or how I get them back onto the hard-disk. After all - identifying files that aren't there is a logical impossibility...

OK now this IS interesting, kind of. Vista install ran, it then reboots...

black screen, white flashing line.

That tells me the problem isn't the Vista install. Could be the file system.

I suspect I need to wipe the hard drive completely and reinstall on a completely clean drive to get this back up and running. But first I will do the FN restart.

new hard disk passes diagnostic tests.
memory integrity test fail, testing 00__00400000
2000-0123 in DIMM_A at just one address. Will have to swap out that DIMM

It's now running more tests - MATS passed, March A is running. I have to go out, will be back later to see the results.

Hi uptoeleven,

You can remove the memory from DIMM A and boot the computer see if there is any change. Then run the diagnostics on the computer and check if DIMM B is fine.

Also, swap the memory from DIMM B to DIMM A and run the diagnostics on the computer to check if the memory slot is fine or it is just a memory card which is not working.

Please post back with the results.

Hi Madhur,

I think there are two issues here.

Primarily I have a laptop which will not boot from its hard drive. It can boot from a cd, or from a USB stick and if my hunch is correct, when I wipe the hard-disk completely, it will boot from that too. If I can get it to boot then I have done what I need to do. It's not great because I will have lost all of my friend's settings and programs but at least she will have her computer, because right now she can't even work.

Secondarily we have some minor faults in memory modules which, no doubt, will cause programs to crash from time to time. It would be desirable to fix that but in terms of priorities - it simply isn't a priority.

Right now I have to get this machine to boot.

I'm going to wipe the drive and then install Vista, rather than installing on an existing partition. This will remove the 94MB Dell diagnostic partition and the 10GB(?) Windows boot partition as well as the 280GB primary disk. I will leave the logical partition which contains Dell MediaDirect as removing it then causes the MediaDirect button to wipe the Windows MBR, as I found to my cost in a previous job.

Hi,

You can reinstall windows on the computer using the discs. Also there is an option to restore the computer to the factory settings. Please use the following link for detailed instructions:
How To Restore or Reinstall Microsoft Windows on a Dell Computer | Dell

Before you try to reinstall windows ensure that data is backed-up to avoid any data loss.

Please post back with the results.