Vista won't boot/Vista Recovery Disk,System Restore won't work? Help, please.

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vo1draid3r

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I wasn't sure whether to file this under a Hardware-related issue or a Windows-related issue.

So my buddy gave me his computer and told me it would only boot up in safe mode. So I performed a chkdsk and suddenly I was able to get Vista to boot normally. I got rid of all the nasties and then I tried to update it with SP1. All seemed to go well until it rebooted after all the updates were finished and then it started to load all of these files. Well, It got stuck and this message started flickering on a black screen:

!! 0xc0ad51 !! ****/9920 (Registry\Machine\Components\DerivedData...)

Now, I can't boot into safe mode, or from a USB drive. When I try to boot normally, I keep getting the same message mentioned above but with different numbers occasionally. I don't even get the "Last Known Good Configuration" option that I've read about. When I launch the "Startup Repair" it just asks me to restore the system and I click "Restore" and it just sits there "Attempting repairs..."
Specs for Toshiba dv6000:

From research, it seems like it might be an issue with the Hard Drive...

UPDATE: I ran a Primary Hard Disk Self-Test and the Test Status came back reading: #1-07 Fail. From research, it seems like the hard drive is failing, which is strange, because it was working fine the first time after I ran a chkdsk. I also read that installing a fresh copy of Vista would work...

Help!
 
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I have never seen a vista machine come back from a "bang bang hex code" vista sp1 install attempt failure (bang is old school for exclamation point).

There are countless posts about this on the web. In a nutshell vista is trying to do a SP1 install and encountered one of a million failures and is going to repeat the same thing over and over.

I just had one this past weekend and after 100 different possible fixes we had to "nuke and pave" the machine. MS will offer very little help. You can research this and maybe get lucky, but expect to put some time into it.

You could try to kill the pending.xml* and cleanup.xml files in the c:\windows\winxsx folder and reboot and see if that wakes it up, but you should only do it as a VERY LAST RESORT as it will likely leave you totally dead if it does not fix it.
 
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That's what I was afraid of. I appreciate the expert-level advice. It's gold to newbie techs like me. I'm going to try and run UBCD or Knoppix or something so I can I pull his documents off and then "nuke and pave" it.
 
vo1draid3r said:
That's what I was afraid of. I appreciate the expert-level advice. It's gold to newbie techs like me. I'm going to try and run UBCD or Knoppix or something so I can I pull his documents off and then "nuke and pave" it.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, some people do have success, but there are thousands of more examples of this failure that will take you days to try until you give up.

If you cannot find your hex code in google and don't want to try all of the possible fixes you are probably better off with a reformat and reload.

I dont know if you had restore points, because it's hilarious how vista will ALWAYS claim it is creating a restore point before doing a SP and then when you go to reload from it the damn machine tells you that there are none. MS knowledge base and tech support will ALWAYS tell you the problem has to be your machine (available space, poorly behaving addon programs, etc) but its really their fault.
 
NYJimbo said:
Don't get me wrong, some people do have success, but there are thousands of more examples of this failure that will take you days to try until you give up.

If you cannot find your hex code in google and don't want to try all of the possible fixes you are probably better off with a reformat and reload.

I dont know if you had restore points, because it's hilarious how vista will ALWAYS claim it is creating a restore point before doing a SP and then when you go to reload from it the damn machine tells you that there are none. MS knowledge base and tech support will ALWAYS tell you the problem has to be your machine (available space, poorly behaving addon programs, etc) but its really their fault.
Click to expand...

That makes sense. A big corporation trying to protect their asses? Unheard of... lol. Yeah, I created a restore point right after Vista booted up normally. I named it "WORKING POINT". And then, it tells me there aren't any... C'mon man... I think I'll save myself the work and just pull the files and reformat.
 
My friend said he doesn't need to save the documents. Should I use Darik's Boot and Nuke or Active Kill Disk? As I am a newbie I just want to make sure that there isn't anything I'm missing. All I have to do is wipe the drive and install a fresh OS right? That is... after I grab my friends serial for Vista Home Premium...
 
vo1draid3r said:
My friend said he doesn't need to save the documents. Should I use Darik's Boot and Nuke or Active Kill Disk? As I am a newbie I just want to make sure that there isn't anything I'm missing. All I have to do is wipe the drive and install a fresh OS right? That is... after I grab my friends serial for Vista Home Premium...
Click to expand...

I am not going to tell you what to use or what to do to recover at this point. No offense, but I expect you to have some tech skills so you have to decide what should be done, there are just too many variables with each install. You should be certain of what he wants to retain before doing anthing.

The best practice is to always clone or image these drives and then go from there. Clients have a terrible habit of remembering something they need days after you have completed your work.
 
You're right. I shouldn't ask someone to hold my hand. Experience is the best teacher sometimes. And yeah I was thinking I should clone the drive just in case he does remember he needs something. I guess I should just do my own research and go from there. Thanks for the swift responses guys. I really appreciate it :)
 
I am not saying you should do it but….. I did it last week when a SP1 install hanged

I did a repair install with vista SP2 and no problems after the repair install I had vista sp2 !!!!


anybody done this?
 
deutschnaftula said:
I am not saying you should do it but….. I did it last week when a SP1 install hanged

I did a repair install with vista SP2 and no problems after the repair install I had vista sp2 !!!!


anybody done this?
Click to expand...

A repair install with a slipstreamed Vista sp2 ?. Not an upgrade?.

Not sure if you did a "startup repair" or something else. With this kind of error "startup repair" will normally fail with the "cannot fix this problem" or whatever language.
 
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