Vista - 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

Hey Robert,

Have a look at this it might help

System Recovery Options

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

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/d...n#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?

Create a Recovery Disc

Hope this helps,
Shawn

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?

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?

Best way is to try it

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