Hi all,

First time to the forum and very relieved and delighted you exist.

I'm wondering if someone could help to explain to me why when recently my Toshiba equium 32bit A200 series laptop running vista home premium stopped loading windows however when i put the hd into my gf's toshiba satellite C660 it just boots up normally, although with a few drivers not working etc..



What i've done so far:
1.) used a windows recovery cd to try to repair the boot loader.

ie: bootrec /fixmbr = Success
bootrec / fixboot = Success
bootrec /rebuildbcd =Fail / cannot find any operating system.

However initially when the repair process starts it does show Windows vista Tm home premium and goes through the whole 'auto repair' without success.

I have also ran chkdsk which shows no errors
Also used diskpart to list drives and it shows C:/ as online.

I dont really need any info on how to transfer files etc and try complete re-install thanks anyway to anyone who wanted to help like that i just would like to hear from anyone whom is familiar with this story. As it is i have a licensed Xp and 7 running on vmware on the drive and my GNS3 labs with a lot of work on there.

few more points: my gf's hard drive with win7 boots up normally in my equium and i updated the bios from toshiba website this way which didnt help in any way and also defaulted the bios settings which also didnt help.

So please feel free to point out my sillyness at being unable to see such a simple solution that you are about to advise!!

Thank you.

You've done what we'd have done at work.

Only thing different would be to run Startup Repair 3 times. Sometimes it doesn't catch everything immediately and it needs a couple of tries to get it done.

The key to the mystery (IMO) lies in the fact that the Startup Repair thingie can't locate an OS/OS loader
That's a simple problem - but it becomes vastly more complicated when you state that it boots up when installed in your girlfriend's computer.

So, why does winload.exe work on your g/f's system, but not on yours? Please check the properties of this file, and it's location (search the hard drive for all instances of winload.exe)

As a starting hypothesis (gotta love them big words! :0), I suspect that something (malware possibly) has changed a registry entry that works early in the Windows load process - and this prevents loading in your system. Since your g/f's system is different, Windows loads a bit differently (as it can't find all the drivers) and possibly skips this errant registry entry.

Once we know about winload.exe and it's variants on your system - then we can look through the registry to see if we can find something that would explain this (this'll involve learning to mount the registry hives outside of the current Windows installation in order to examine it).

Good luck!

Hi usasma,

Im really thankfull for your response, That give me a new path to work on as i've exhausted my own knowledge, And was beginning to feel adrift in an ocean with this issue.
Im certain your right about the registry entry as the editbcd command lists everything as you you would expect in a normal boot.

So ill work a bit on what you advised and hopefully comeback with something for people to examine.

I would really like to find a solution for this as although i sourced only three other instances of this on the internet none had a documented solution (if there were any)

Many thanks indeed.

If there's a need for you to mess around in the registry, we'll show you how to do it with minimal issues (using System Restore and a bootable Vista repair disk).

I'd suggest first searching the registry for winload.exe.
Then just copy/paste the path to each entry into your next post.
FWIW - my Win7 system only shows 2 entries - both in the Elements sub-key (don't have a Vista VM setup at this time).

As for the data transfer, I never transfer settings. IMO it's just asking for trouble (as you don't know if it's a "setting" that's causing the problem). I simply copy data from one hard drive to another. At work we primarily just copy the C:\Users folder into the Public Documents folder on the new system.

Since there's only 1 winlogon, I'd have to suspect that it's OK as it's similar to mine.
That means that there's likely to be another, unknown problem.

I'd suggest this procedure:

Backup, Wipe, and "Clean Install" of Windows

For testing purposes, it's best to install Windows "clean".
This is, basically, installing it the way that Microsoft intended (using drivers from Windows Update).
This procedure is for Windows 7 and Vista

You will need your installation/recovery DVD(s) before you start. Once you wipe the hard drive there's no going back!!!

1. Backup all your data.
This will wipe everything off of your hard drive, so anything that you want to keep will need to be saved elsewhere.

NOTE: If this is due to an infection, remember to scan the data with another system's current antivirus in order to locate and remove any malware.
NOTE: Disconnect any additional hard drives (internal and external) that you may have installed. This may break any multi-boot setups that you have, so be prepared to conduct recovery operations on them once you're done. Don't forget that, if this is due to an infection, the additional hard drives may be infected also.

2. Connect the system to the internet (if the system says disconnect from the Internet, then do so).

3. Use one of these free utilities to wipe the hard drive clean:
DBAN ( DBAN Download | Darik's Boot And Nuke )
KillDisk ( Freeware Download Active@ KillDisk ).
This will also delete any recovery partitions on the system - so the installation/recovery DVD's are essential!!!

4. Install Windows by booting from the installation/recovery DVD - DO NOT tweak any settings!!!

5. Visit Windows Update and get all updates

6. Check Device Manager for any unknown/disabled devices - if there are unknown/disabled devices, fix them with the latest drivers from the device manufacturer's website (not the PC Manufacturer)

7. Visit Windows Update and get the Service Packs for your system. (usually under Important Updates).
Read these notes for installing Windows 7 SP1: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...service-pack-1 and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2505743
Read these notes for installing Vista SP1: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...ice-Pack-1-SP1
Read these notes for installing Vista SP2: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...ice-Pack-2-SP2
Search Google/Bing for installing other OS's Service Packs.

8. Visit Windows Update and get any other available updates

9. Download, install, and update a free antivirus so you don't get infected while testing ( http://www.carrona.org/freeav.html ).

If the problems persist, then the problem is most likely with your hardware.

CAVEAT: If you have an Asus motherboard, check the date on the C:\Windows\System32\driver\ASACPI.sys file. 2004/2005 is a problem, 2009/2010 is OK. Updates are available at the Asus support website.

CAVEAT: If you have a Sony system, make sure that you DO NOT have the 2007 (or earlier) version of the Sony Firmware Extension Parser (SFEP.sys). Update this driver immediately!!!