No Operating System - Is There a Plague?

I have no idea what is going on in the Vista world. A couple of weeks ago my Dell Inspiron 1520 stopped working and I posted to this forum.(http://www.vistax64.com/crashes-debugging/288759-recovery-console-no-os.html). When using a MS Vista installation CD to boot, no operating system displays.

Last week my desktop, a Gateway DX4720-03 also stopped booting correctly, and eventually, using that same MS Vista installation CD to boot, no operating system would display. (http://www.vistax64.com/crashes-debugging/289114-need-advice-0x7b-bsod.html).

Yesterday, my Compaq Presario laptop stopped booting. Just a black screen. My Vista disk once again shows no operating system.

What could possibly be going on? I am now down to my last PC, a good old reliable emachines, running XP. Never given me any trouble.

On each of these Vista PCs, I have used multiple tools to try to correct the problems. A few days ago, someone at this forum gave me a link to download a Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10.

All of these tools (Winternals 2005 ERD, Seagate HD Diagnostics, Memtest86, Ubuntu, and the Kaspersky seem to be rendered totally useless if the PC fails to detect an OS. If there is some kind of really nasty rootkit virus that's infecting Vista machines, I seem to be in the middle of the emergency ward. Shouldn't there some sort of process that I can run to get rid of problems on my OS, even if the computer fails to recognize that ther is an OS?

The SeaTools disk always displays the hard drive on these PCs, but in every case the long test eventually tells me that it cannot repair the problems. From the command prompt (accessed using the install disk), I cannot get to my C: drive, the drive that has Windows installed on it. The closest I can get is on my just-broken Compaq which gives me the msg "Data error (cyclic redundancy check)".

Am I just having an incredibly bad run of luck, or is there some horribly malignant malware that's keeping 3 previously excellently working Vista PCs from not booting , and displaying essentially the same symptons?

And is there ANYTHI?NG I can do about it? Any tools? Or is it that I've had 3 hard drive failures in as many weeks from 3 different PCs? That's hard to believe.

Have you got these computers connected together in a network? If so then it may be a virus. The xp machine may not be seen by the vista machine so protecting it.

CRC errors are more comon than you think, but I have not seen one on a HD before.

On reading some of your other post are any of your HD`s s.m.a.r.t. if so then go into the BIOS of one of the laptops and you may be able to test it.

roy69 said:

Have you got these computers connected together in a network?

Click to expand...

The 2 desktops (the emachines XP and the Gateway), are connected directly to a modem. One of the laptops is works wirelessly off a router connected to that modem. The other laptop is connected to a different router and modem.

Here's the latest on my 2 problem PCs:
On the Gateway DX4720-03 (64 bit) - I took the HD out of the chassis, and hooked it up to my XP w a USB caddy. I ran Malwarebytes on it but eventually got a lost connection message (some 'delayed write' thing, which really means that my XP no longer recognizes the I: drive (the HD from the Gateway). It will re-recognize it if I unplug and replug.

Eventually, after copying all the docs & pics to an external HD (a lot of work, since every 15 or so minutes, I'd get that delayed write again), I put the drive back into the chassis., and tried to rebook in safe mode.

Amazingly, this time it worked, and I could run Malwarebytes. It would find 34 errors early on, but when it got to be close to being finished (just a guess, based on the file count), it would stop responding. A reboot would always initiate an automatic chkdsk, but it would only indicate that there were 3 stages, not 5 (what's up with that?). The auto chkdsk would always get to the same point on stage 1 (9 % complete), and it would just stay there for 10-15 minutes. Then it would seem to rouse itself, skip the rest of chkdsk in stage 1, automatically get out of chkdsk and bring me to the signon screen. Invariably, the password would take a couple minutes to even display the dots, and it would got no further. I could turn it off with the button, and get back into the system with safe mode, wher I could access the internet, my pictures, pretty much anything I wanted to.

I then went into msconfig and changed the startup from normal to diagnostic, opened an elevated command prompt and initiated a chkdsk /r /f to be run at next startup. On that startup it did go into chkdsk, and this time it indicated all 5 stages. But on stage 1, once again, it got to the same file count and pct, and skipped the rest of chkdsk, bringing up the signon screen. This time I could sign on, and see my desktop, but I couldn't do much of anything because of the minimal drivers loaded.

Then I got out my Vista disk (only a 32 bit disk), and booted from that, thinking that I could run chkdsk from the command prompt. No operating system. Then I tried the Gateway Vista disk (also 32 bit). Again, no OS.

I feel that this sucker is so close to working perfectly, yet so far away. Is the lack of OS display in either of the disks because of the 32/64 bit difference?. I have no 64 bit Vista disk.

On the other machine, the Compaq laptop running 32 bit Vista, I tried to to install Windows using the MS 32 bit Vista disk. After entering the product code and accepting the license terms, it tells me that 'Upgrade has been disabled. To upgrade start the installation from Windows'.

'Course, if I could upgrade from within Windows, I'd still have a windows installation, and I wouldn't have to upgrade. So okay I can't upgrade, and since I'd already decided to forego saving anything, I clicked on Custom Install. It originally displayed 2 partitions. I clicked on drive options, deleted both partitions, clicked on New, let Windows apply the size setting, then formatted the drive.

On the first step, while the Copying Windows hadn't budged past 0%, I got a message: 'Windows setup could not reinitialize the deployment engine. To install Windows, restart the installation'. ****ering shrouded in obfuscation. 'Deployment Engine' my ass. Bull**** code for 'something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is'.

Well, there's obviously no point in restarting the installation since I'll only achieve the same results. I even tried to use an old XP install disk to see if I could reformat from that puppy. No joy there either.

Any thoughts on EITHER (or both) of these problems?

It sounds to me as if you do have a malware problem.
If you are booting from an XP disk then you may run into problems if the HD`s are formatted in NTFS as these are different formats.
Have you looked at the smart options for your HD from within the BIOS?

roy69 said:

It sounds to me as if you do have a malware problem.

Click to expand...

On the Gateway desktop, I currently have it running in mormal mode, but it is exceedingly slow. Malwarebytes is running, but it only scanned a few thousand files before it began 'not responding'. Right now it's at about 35000 files, and has stopped responding once again.

roy69 said:

If you are booting from an XP disk then you may run into problems if the HD`s are formatted in NTFS as these are different formats.

Click to expand...

The XP boot attempt was me trying an alternative method to format the Compaq laptop's hard drive. (Remember, I have two separate problems in this post). I have since (successfully, I think?) formatted the drive on that machine using GPart. I just can't get past the Expanding Files section of the install.

roy69 said:

Have you looked at the smart options for your HD from within the BIOS?

Click to expand...

I probably should know what that means, but I don't. The laptop gives me very few options when I'm in the BIOS, not a single one of them labeled Smart Options. I did just run the Primary Hard Disk Self Test from within the BIOS, and I got a #1 - 07 Fail return. This is after formatting. I have not looked at the BIOS for the desktop, currently sitting at 37,818 files...

Okay, using my XP, I downloaded a 64 bit ISO of Vista and burnt it to a CD. I canceled the Malwarebytes scan, since it hadn't budged in over an hour, and booted of the new 64 bit disk. Different disk, but the same result. No effing operating system. Then I take the disk out and successfully start in safe mode with networking. It takes some time (in safe mode it always hangs for about 15 minutes at the driver for crcdisk (what does THAT mean?), but eventually it always boots. Ran another quick scan od Malwarebytes, and, although the machine had been responding fantastically in safe mode, it hung up again (just lile in normal mode) at about the 37,000 file mark. I feek like if I could just somehow run a chkdsk and repair things, the PC would be fine.

Obviously this problem is beyond the scope of anyone at this forum. I'll just reinstall and be done with it.