Corrupt Vista Installation?

dmcau

New Member
Hi all, I've been having some trouble with my installation of Vista today. It had been running without a hitch for nearly a year. I think the problem started since Windows was taking a long time to shut down, I assumed (wrongly perhaps) that it had frozen, and so I forced it to shutdown by holding the power button for 5 seconds. Another possible cause could be I plugged in a USB joystick (driver conflict?).

When I started my PC back up I noticed things seemed to be running very slowly at times, as if the system was having trouble accessing some files. I scheduled a Disk Check and restarted. It found and fixed some errors, brought me into my desktop, and then a pop up kept appearing in the bottom right tool bar saying '*.exe could not be accessed' and something about a folder named '$Secure'. My browser bookmarks wouldn't load, for example. I restarted again and this time during startup the green loading bar would run its course, and then a black screen and a cursor appeared, rather than the Vista logon screen. I booted off my Vista DVD and ran Startup Repair. It found and fixed some errors but I still have the black screen problem. I also ran another Disk Check, as well as some HDD diagnostic software - it said everything was fine. When I try running Startup Repair again, it tells me it doesn't see any errors and to remove any recently added hardware (I have).

I'm stuck at this point. I would like to repair (upgrade) my installation of Vista, but I need to be able to get into a working install in the first place to do that. Any ideas besides formatting and doing a clean install? Thanks!
 

My Computer

Hi dmcau,

What exactly did the pop up say? What you have quoted, '*.exe', could mean absolutely anything. We need to know what '*' actually is.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dwarf Dwf/11/2012 r09/2013
    CPU
    Intel Core-i5-3570K 4-core @ 3.4GHz (Ivy Bridge) (OC 4.2GHz)
    Motherboard
    ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M
    Memory
    4 x 4GB DDR3-1600 Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B (16GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI GeForce GTX770 Gaming OC 2GB
    Sound Card
    Realtek High Definition on board solution (ALC 898)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ViewSonic VA1912w Widescreen
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900
    Hard Drives
    OCZ Agility 3 120GB SATA III x2 (RAID 0)
    Samsung HD501LJ 500GB SATA II x2
    Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 1TB SATA II
    Iomega 1.5TB Ext USB 2.0
    WD 2.0TB Ext USB 3.0
    PSU
    XFX Pro Series 850W Semi-Modular
    Case
    Gigabyte IF233
    Cooling
    1 x 120mm Front Inlet 1 x 120mm Rear Exhaust
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000 (USB)
    Mouse
    Microsoft Comfort Mouse 3000 for Business (USB)
    Internet Speed
    NetGear DG834Gv3 ADSL Modem/Router (Ethernet) ~4.0 Mb/s (O2)
    Other Info
    Optical Drive: HL-DT-ST BD-RE BH10LS30 SATA Bluray
    Lexmark S305 Printer/Scanner/Copier (USB)
    WEI Score: 8.1/8.1/8.5/8.5/8.25
    Asus Eee PC 1011PX Netbook (Windows 7 x86 Starter)
I used * because it popped up multiple times for each program I was running. For example I ran Google Chrome and it said 'Chrome.exe'. I don't completely understand what it meant because Chrome ran successfully, but my bookmarks were missing.
 

My Computer

Hi Dmcau,

You might check to see if you are able to boot into Safe Mode to run the Repair (upgrade) install from there instead.

Hope this helps,
Shawn
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Manufacturer/Model
    Custom
    CPU
    Intel i7-8700K 5 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula Z390
    Memory
    64 GB (4x16GB) G.SKILL TridentZ RGB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C18D-32GTZR)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS ROG-STRIX-GTX1080TI-O11G-GAMING
    Sound Card
    Integrated Digital Audio (S/PDIF)
    Monitor(s) Displays
    2 x Samsung Odyssey G7 27"
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    1TB Samsung 990 PRO M.2,
    4TB Samsung 990 PRO PRO M.2,
    8TB WD MyCloudEX2Ultra NAS
    PSU
    Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
    Case
    Thermaltake Core P3
    Cooling
    Corsair Hydro H115i
    Keyboard
    Logitech wireless K800
    Mouse
    Logitech MX Master 3
    Internet Speed
    1 Gb/s Download and 35 Mb/s Upload
    Other Info
    Logitech Z625 speaker system,
    Logitech BRIO 4K Pro webcam,
    HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdn,
    APC SMART-UPS RT 1000 XL - SURT1000XLI,
    Galaxy S23 Plus phone
  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy Y0F94AV
    CPU
    i7-7500U @ 2.70 GHz
    Memory
    16 GB DDR4-2133
    Graphics card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
    Sound Card
    Conexant ISST Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17.3" UHD IPS touch
    Screen Resolution
    3480 x 2160
    Hard Drives
    512 GB M.2 SSD
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