Vista fails to Boot

gmhitchcock

New Member
Several weeks ago had a 750GB hard drive fail without a recent backup. Sent HD to a recovery center, they were able to recover the drives' data (which included encrypted EFS directories). They cloned the data onto a new drive. I can view the directories / files on the drive (when attached to another computer / external), but cannot access files.

I attempted to install the new clone on original system, but it does not boot (blinking cursor). I've run the Vista Automated Repair three times (states that the system is ok - reviewed log and everything passes), but system still does not boot (blinking cursor).

I need to get the system to boot so I can log in under my user ID and decrypt the files.

Any suggestions?

Vista Ultimate x64 (Upgrade Edition)
Motherboard - Asus P5QL-E with 4GB RAM
Video - Asus 9800-GTX
HD - Seagate 7200.12 750GB
 

My Computer

Hello gmhitchcock, welcome to Vista Forums!





What I would suggest is to create a bootable disk of the free Partition Wizard, at the link below, then you can see if the partition the OS is on is marked as active, if not you can mark it as active then you can run the 3 startup repairs to see if that's the issue. (look at Option Three, Step Two)
Be sure to post back with the outcome.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    * BFK Customs *
    CPU
    Intel C2Q 9550 Yorkfield
    Motherboard
    ASUS P5Q Pro
    Memory
    8GB Dominator 8500C5D
    Graphics Card(s)
    XFX ATI 1GB 4870 XXX
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD 7-1
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1x 47" LCD HDMI & 2x 26" LCD HDMI
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080P & 1920x1200
    Hard Drives
    2x 500GB 7200RPM 32MB Cache WD Caviar Black
    PSU
    Corsair 620HX
    Case
    CM Cosmos RC-1000
    Cooling
    Tuniq Tower 120, 2x 140mm and 3x 120mm case fans
    Keyboard
    HP Enhansed Multimedia
    Mouse
    Razer Diamondback 3G
    Internet Speed
    18.6Mb/s
    Other Info
    My First Build ;)
Did not have any CD's, but if the issue was to make the partition active, I booted to the Windows Recovery, Repair, command prompt and used Diskpart.exe.
- Select Disk 0
- Selected Partition 1
- Active

Restarted in Windows Recovery, ran Repair, same result (all tests passed).
Went back into DiskPart.exe
- Select Disk 0
- Detail Disk


-------------------------- RESULTS --------------------

Disk ID: ABDCF321
Type: ATA
Bus: 0
Target : 0
LUN ID: 0
Read only : No
Boot Disk: No
Page File Disk: No
Hibernation File Disk: No
CrashDump Disk: No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 2 C SYSTEM64 NTFS Partition 699 GB Healthy

- Select Volume 2
- Detail Volume

-------------------------- RESULTS --------------------

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
----------------------------------------------
Disk 0 Online 699 GB 0 GB

Read only: No
Hidden: No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy: No
Dismounted: No
Bitlocker Encrypted: No

Volume Capacity: 699 GB
Volume Free Space: 337 GB

Assume since the disk is not marked as bootable, that is the issue?
Not sure how to proceed.

Theog - FYI - cannot decrypt files (did not have key). Need to load OS and login to decrypt.
 

My Computer

Is it a Primary partition ?

Any reason it is showing as Volume 2 , maybe you have a couple of optical drives.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Vista
    CPU
    Intel E8400
    Motherboard
    ASRock1333-GLAN R2.0
    Memory
    4gb DDR2 800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nvidia 9500GT 1gb
  • Operating System
    win7/vista
    CPU
    intel i5-8400
    Motherboard
    gigabyte b365m ds3h
    Memory
    ballistix 2x8gb 3200
- List Partitions (Disk 0)

-------------------------- RESULTS --------------------

Partition ### Type Size Offset
---------------------------------------
Partition 1 Primary 699 GB 32 KB

Two Optical Drives (DVD-RW and CD)
 

My Computer

- List Volume

-------------------------- RESULTS --------------------

Voume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 0 D 2008.03.29 UDF DVD-ROM 149 MB Healthy
Volume 1 E CD-ROM 0 MB No Media
Volume 2 C SYSTEM64 NTFS Partition 699 GB Healthy
 

My Computer

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