Failed update - BSOD Vista Home Premium 64 Bit (SP1)

Hi all, I'm wondering if you could help me? I'm having trouble with my brother's laptop.

here's our story of woe - using his latop, I noticed the usual teenage signs of abuse - windows security turned off, Defender unable to check for updates, so I ran Windows Update in the hope of getting some newer defender definitions to being the healing process. It found four - one of which was I.E. 8 (so who knows if he's even ever run W.U. before?) anyway the updates downloaded and i clicked restart, all good until it reached 'Installing Update 3 of 3'

The screen reads 'Installing Update 3 of 3 ... 0%' for around 5 seconds, then a BSOD pops up for litterally a fraction of a second and the system restarts ... and the process repeats -over and over.

enter problem 2 - having found a Vista 64 recovery cd (because of course he hasn't burned one) I have found that he hasn't created any restore points or system images - he has done a file back up, so that's something, and the only other ray of light is that we can boot into safe mode.

Any Ideas on the best way to proceed? I'm obviously hoping for 'this is how you cancel the update..' but as I suspect that isn't going to happen, what's going to be the least damaging way of getting this up and running again, anyway to save the programs? (he seems particularly precious about World of Warcraft)

Many thanks in advance!

Jon

If you post the information, we can help
http://www.vistax64.com/crashes-debugging/282419-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

Thank you Richard, He's helpfully gone out without leaving me his password to get back into safe mode, but I will post the results as soon as I can get hold of him.

Regards,
Jon

hello again, The BSOD tool completed and I have attached the report, however, when I type perfmon /report in the start menu, I get:

Error
An error occurred while generating the report

the system cannot find the path specified

this is the original OEM install as far as I am aware - it definitely says OEM in the licence in computer properties - and the laptop is 3-4 years old.

Thank you for taking the time to help!

Jon

Jon
Perfmon, I can live without, but the most important file (mini dump) is missing too.

I must have missed that, I thought I had followed all the steps on the link, how to I get the mini dump?

Jon

http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/231972-no-minidump-file-located.html

If not there set up to get minidump created
http://www.ehow.com/about_6645449_physical-memory-dump-problems.html

I just went to C:\Windows\minidump, but it's empty so then i followed the instructions in the link to find out that dumps are being written to

%SystemRoot%\memory.dmp

But I understand that %SystemRoot% is C:\Windows, and there's no folder or file in there called memory.dmp?

If you got a blue screen and there is not dump. Follow the instructions above (in ehow) showing how to create them in the future. Then with the next BSOD, send me the report

I'm a bit stuck now. Whatever I change in "Start up and Recovery", when I restart they are reset. I've tried setting small dump, kernel dump (I don't have the option for complete) and I've tried changing the location of the dump file... I've even tried turning off the restart feature hoping to be able to read the BSOD, but nothing seems to be making any difference - I restart , it says installing updates and crashes, reboots.

Could this be because I can only use safety mode?

Yes safe mode can be the problem.
I think that the system is hosed. Might even be from a virus. Load Ubuntu to save your stuff and then we will try a factory reinstall.
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
If you cannot load Ubuntu, you have a hardware problem, which cannot be fixed here.
After your stuff is saved, give me make and model of computer.