BSOD

[TiopK]

Got the dreaded black screen of death! Turn on the computer, the dell logo comes up and just before the log on screen usually appears the screen goes black and stays that way.

I have a Dell Dimension C521. Running Windows Vista Home Basic, 64X. Not exactly sure how the propblem occured, I'm guessing maybe from updates? Which it usually does at night time. Anyway turned it on in the morning and a black screen before log on.

I tried pressing F8 after the dell logo to get the boot options, ran last known good configuration, still getting a black screen. Ran it in all the safe modes still with the black screen. Tried running start up repair, but it just seems to be going on forever, left it on a whole day and still running.

Tried using system restore, but it says "The Disk OS (C has errors, Windows has detected file system corruption on OS (C. You must check the disk for errors before it can be restored."

But when I tried to check the disk for errors the thing seems to freeze and not work.

So anyway that

 

[niemiro]

Hi,

Have you tried "sfc /scannow" from your Vista install disk. However your issue sounds very big and a complete reinstall will probably be the only way You can burn a BartPE CD to recover your data then reformat. I will come back to you with how to do this with a Dell OEM Disk as only did it last month, but quite busy now.

Richard

P.S. Did you put that into Word to spell check it?

 

[TiopK]

Sorry posting via ps3, not sure why it made a smilie, but that's suppose to represent the C drive. And as you can tell didn't quite finish that first post up there, wouldn't let me post more.

Yes I tried the sfc scan via command prompt, it says something like computer needs to run a repair on next reboot first before I can do that. Also another thing can't shut down or restart from the repair options panel, just get the aqua-ish screen. Also have tried reggedit.exe in command prompt to see if it wasn't set as "Local System" instead of NT Auhtority, but that was fine and right.

And back to the repair thing with sfc, sometimes it comes up with the option of start up of repair or start windows normally. But then I'm back to start up repair running forever. Tried it all with the vista dvd as well, start up repair after a few mins with that says something like "can't fix this computer automatically".

 

[TiopK]

And I have read about a hotfix from windows that could resolve the issue. But I wouldn't know what to do with it, or where and how to put it where it needs to go seeing as I can't log on. So not sure if that's worth mentioning?

And thank you in anyway you can help me recover my personal files, regardless if I get the machine working right again I would very much like to recover all my files if possible. So cheers.

 

[usasma]

Diagnostics:

H/W Diagnostics:
Please start by running these bootable hardware diagnostics:
Memory Diagnostics (read the details at the link)
HD Diagnostic (read the details at the link)

Also, please run one of these free, independent online malware scans to ensure that your current protection hasn't been compromised: Malware (read the details at the link)