Solved Oh no! Another total crash! Should I buy a full CD?

The screaming you hear is me! I have had two total wipe outs, non-recoverable crashes on my 4 month old Asus G50vt. One time went back to Asus for a re-install, Start over. A month later, another one. Called Asus for a work around or repair--no such thing. Total reinstall.

Sick of this, I bought an ext eSATA drive and it has a full bootable copy of the C and D drives on the laptop.

I can boot to either one, and tested it many times. Thanks to the boot menu.

This am, it boots to the msg:

file is missing or corrupt:

windows/system32/winload.exe

It says to use the installation disk for repair. Yeah, right, no such animal, came installed.

Okay, boot to the backup.

Same problem! omg! No safemode, nothing.

I cannot spend more days reinstalling everything. [and how much did I lose this time?]

Q: can I just go buy a full Vista-64 CD and select repair? I know the product ID numbers wont match, but will it let me repair?

I am so mad that I cannot even describe it.

thanks for any help

robertpri said:

The screaming you hear is me! I have had two total wipe outs, non-recoverable crashes on my 4 month old Asus G50vt. One time went back to Asus for a re-install, Start over. A month later, another one. Called Asus for a work around or repair--no such thing. Total reinstall.

Sick of this, I bought an ext eSATA drive and it has a full bootable copy of the C and D drives on the laptop.

I can boot to either one, and tested it many times. Thanks to the boot menu.

This am, it boots to the msg:

file is missing or corrupt:

windows/system32/winload.exe

It says to use the installation disk for repair. Yeah, right, no such animal, came installed.

Okay, boot to the backup.

Same problem! omg! No safemode, nothing.

I cannot spend more days reinstalling everything. [and how much did I lose this time?]

Q: can I just go buy a full Vista-64 CD and select repair? I know the product ID numbers wont match, but will it let me repair?

I am so mad that I cannot even describe it.

thanks for any help

Click to expand...

Hey Robert,

Have a look at this it might help

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/194765-system-recovery-options.html?ltr=S

A: Should you end up buying a Vista DVD then yes it should work

It is also still under warranty as you no doubt know so that is also an option

I hope this works

Pooch

pooch said:

robertpri said:

The screaming you hear is me! I have had two total wipe outs, non-recoverable crashes on my 4 month old Asus G50vt. One time went back to Asus for a re-install, Start over. A month later, another one. Called Asus for a work around or repair--no such thing. Total reinstall.

Sick of this, I bought an ext eSATA drive and it has a full bootable copy of the C and D drives on the laptop.

I can boot to either one, and tested it many times. Thanks to the boot menu.

This am, it boots to the msg:

file is missing or corrupt:

windows/system32/winload.exe

It says to use the installation disk for repair. Yeah, right, no such animal, came installed.

Okay, boot to the backup.

Same problem! omg! No safemode, nothing.

I cannot spend more days reinstalling everything. [and how much did I lose this time?]

Q: can I just go buy a full Vista-64 CD and select repair? I know the product ID numbers wont match, but will it let me repair?

I am so mad that I cannot even describe it.

thanks for any help

Click to expand...

Hey Robert,

Have a look at this it might help

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/194765-system-recovery-options.html?ltr=S

A: Should you end up buying a Vista DVD then yes it should work

It is also still under warranty as you no doubt know so that is also an option

I hope this works

Pooch

Click to expand...

Many thanks, but the well written recovery link does not work. Like so many other laptops, there are only two options when booting to recovery [or using the recovery disk] one is a complete re-do to original factory settings of C and D drive, and the other is C drive only.

I called asus three times on this, and they confirmed it--no repair option.

scorched earth.

Now, the asus tech said that I might try the MS WAIK method, which is supposed to be an MS supplied reair option. The file is gigatic, 1.4gb, which I downloaded.

I would like someone on this site to comment first, before I try it, but at this time, i have nothing to lose.

the ms link is:\

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...81A5-5B50C657DE08&displaylang=en#Instructions

comments?

Hello Robert,

Have you tried to see if using the Recovery (repair) disk created using this tutorial below will allow you to boot to the System Recovery Options screen?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/141820-create-recovery-disc.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

robertpri said:

Many thanks, but the well written recovery link does not work. Like so many other laptops, there are only two options when booting to recovery [or using the recovery disk] one is a complete re-do to original factory settings of C and D drive, and the other is C drive only.

I called asus three times on this, and they confirmed it--no repair option.

scorched earth.

Now, the asus tech said that I might try the MS WAIK method, which is supposed to be an MS supplied reair option. The file is gigatic, 1.4gb, which I downloaded.

I would like someone on this site to comment first, before I try it, but at this time, i have nothing to lose.

the ms link is:\

Download details: Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008

comments?

Click to expand...

As far as I understand it Waik is used to make an upgrade DVD......... but you need a Vista DVD to do it

You would do better to follow Brinks post

I wanted to try that recovery tutorial, except

option one

This option is perfect if you do not have a retail Vista installation DVD and only have a OEM Vista recovery DVD or partition, or if you do not have the Vista SP1 installed.

I have SP1

option two

This option is only useful if you have the Vista SP1 installed and have a retail Vista installation DVD

I don't the retail installation DVD

So, I did not believe either one would work for me.

Right? Wrong?

robertpri said:

I wanted to try that recovery tutorial, except

option one

This option is perfect if you do not have a retail Vista installation DVD and only have a OEM Vista recovery DVD or partition, or if you do not have the Vista SP1 installed.

I have SP1

option two

This option is only useful if you have the Vista SP1 installed and have a retail Vista installation DVD

I don't the retail installation DVD

So, I did not believe either one would work for me.

Right? Wrong?

Click to expand...

Maybe I misunderstand this but option one is for you as you have vista installed but cant use it and option 1 allows you to make a rescue CD/DVD that works exactly the same as the rescue elements of a Vista DVD

Pooch

I think the wording may be confusing

Many thanks, and maybe the terms confuse me, but

I thought option one was for vista but NOT SP1.

[ I have SP1]

Option two was for having the installation DVD

[but I don't have that]

however, option two, if you already HAD the installation DVD, you would not even need this recovery method. So option two should work?

Or am i still mis-reading it?

robertpri said:

Many thanks, and maybe the terms confuse me, but

I thought option one was for vista but NOT SP1.

[ I have SP1]

Click to expand...

Best way is to try it

robertpri said:

Option two was for having the installation DVD

[but I don't have that]

however, option two, if you already HAD the installation DVD, you would not even need this recovery method. So option two should work?

Or am i still mis-reading it?

Click to expand...

If you have a Vista DVD yes

Heh, one of the steps is to:

7. In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\System32\recdisc.exe. (See screenshot below)

But I can not boot to safemode or F8, F9, F5, nothing. Only to that error msg that winload.exe is suddenly missing or corrupt. Not that it helps at all, but if this was XP I could have fixed that file in two minutes. Oh well, another vista story

Thanks for all your help, but after a dozen hours, I am no closer, so will just give up and go buy the darn thing.

I know you guys tried, and maybe if i was smarter---

thanks

Hey you tried as well it might have worked differently

At least with a DVD you can try a repair or install completely new it gives you more options.

One last thing think about the Drivers you will need if you do a new install you should be able to download them from the Asus site (handy to have before hand)

Brink said:

Hello Robert,

Have you tried to see if using the Recover (repair) disk created using this tutorial below will allow you to boot from to the System Recovery Options screen?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/141820-create-recovery-disc.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Click to expand...

What you can try is Tooth Paste on the CD.

Hello Alex.

??? :huh:

Heh, I should have save the last two hours and just go spend the money. I made a backup via Acronis TrueImage 2009, and a bootable disk. Tried it, booted fine to Acronis, and it found my vista backup. But it won't restore to the original hard drive, wants to install to some other drive.

Also made Partition Manager bootable and that works fine, but it can't find the PM backup *.pbf that I made.

Sheesh--wasted $100 on those two.

I assume the BCDEasy load menu is on the C drive and since winload won't load, that is why it won't let me boot to the backup drive?

[I need to stop over thinking this thing]

Admin can close this now. I finally did what I should have done in the first place, very obvious, but did not think of it until today.

Went into F2 setup, and changed the boot sequence to my eSATA ext backup drive. Booted perfectly, as it should, being a full copy backup, not a ghost or image.

Once booted, I went to the laptop drive in Explore and it won't even open the \windows folder. Says it corrupted.

Ergo, I will copy back to the laptop drive from the backup drive.

I KNEW that I created a full backup just for this reason, but then forgot how to actually use the backup!

Robert,

I'm happy that you were able to get it sorted out. I hope that the laptop hard drive is not starting to die on you.

Brink said:

Marke solved Robert.

I'm happy that you were able to get it sorted out. I hope that the laptop hard drive is not starting to die on you.

Click to expand...

Thank you for replying.
New situation, although GREATLY improved!

Was
laptop C/D drives, vista and data
esata E/F drives, copies of vista and data

would not boot to either one using BCD [which was working perfectly]

Error was:

missing or corrupt file /windows/system32/winload.exe

New situation
[reversed boot sequence so they are reversed

esata C/D drives, vista and data
laptop E/F copies

I then copied C to E [as I have done many times without a problem using Casper]

BCD allows my to choose the sata drive which works fine, the laptop drive STILL says,
missing or corrupt file /windows/system32/winload.exe


Now, I checked that file and copied from good drive to laptop--same issue.

Scheesh!

This might be another thread, but I also made the Hidden Recovery partition INactive, and the core drives, C and E--ACTIVE. This worked, except for the error.

Can I just delete that hidden partition? It seems to cause me more problems, and I don't every intend to use the recovey anyway. Besides, I have a copy

I say that you may need to format the laptop, and possibly a factory restore of Vista, then try restoring the backup from your external to see if that may work better then.

The hidden partition is your OEM Vista recovery partition. If you delete it, you will have no way to reinstall Vista on your laptop unless you have created the set of OEM Vista recovery DVDs or you have another Vista installation DVD (ex: retail) that you can use instead.

Sounds good. I have the vista recovery on DVD--same as hidden recovery. According to tech supp at the factory, they are identical, only the on onboard will install about 5x as fast as a DVD.

I didn't even know it was there the second time it failed, and used the DVD version. It does not have a 'repair' mode which cause most of my problems.

thanks

Well, finally figured it out after wasting countless hours. It seems that error,

"missing file

\windows\system32\winload.exe

is not really missing. The BCD simply cannot find it. It also appears to be more common with dual boot folks, like me, and those who connect\disconnect USB devices.

Somehow, the vista bootloader loses track of where vista is located. Reinstalling works, but a waste of much time and energy, plus the loss of data.

One only needs to configure the boot loader to point in the right direction and it's fixed. It seems that some can fix it by disconnecting or reconnecting their USB devices in various combinations and rebooting, particuarly USB drives because that is what confuses the loader.