Vista - Vista Ultimate - Won't Boot and Startup Repair crashes

Boot Failure - bad ndis.sys, Status 0xC...C9, please insert Install disk and
repair
(I paraphrase)
Tried ALL boot options and got the same result, so I ran the repair from the
install disk. The Startup Repair ran for over twelve hours then I got BSOD:
STOP 0x0000000A (0xDE49854E 0x00000002 0x00000000 0x888BA8D7)

Tried boot again same results as before; i.e. ndis ...

Running Startup Repair again now, two hours and counting ...

BTW running repair off of Anytime Upgrade disk if that makes any difference.

Any clues?

Hi RodeWorrier,

You can try doing a Repair Install to see if it will fix the problem for you.

Repair Install For Vista

Shawn

Thanks, this is indeed a clue, I'm running on a Dell XPS 700 with 4 GB of ram
so KB929777 - Error message when you try to install Windows Vista on a
computer that uses more than 3 GB of RAM: "STOP 0x0000000A" may apply, I'll
check it out tomorrow. The Startup Repair process may have gotten the BSOD
because of this. I think I'll pull the extra 2 GB out since it seems to give
me nothing but grief.

"brink" wrote:

BTW When I say "Startup Repair" I am talking about running System Repair from
the Install disk, that is what took twelve hours and ended with a BSOD. Is
that what you meant by a "Repair Install." If so I am currently six hours
into my second attempt. Judging by what I read starting at the link you sent
I'm betting that it BSOD's also. I'll find out in the morning. 18 hours on
this bugger is quite enough for now. (Actually I have not been spending that
time working on this one system, I've a few others keeping me busy also.
That's how long the repair attempt has been running.) Thanks to you I am
less clueless ...

"rodeworrier" wrote:

RodeWorrier,

No, a Startup Repair is completely different than a Repair Install. A Repair Install is doing a Upgrade install on top of you current install to repair it. It should help you.

If you had more than 3 GB of RAM, then that can cause your problem to.

Shawn

Unfortunately this is an multilayer upgrade, i.e. XP > Vista Business >
Anytime Upgrade (Ultimate) when I put in the PID during the Repair Install it
says for the product with this PID I must run the install disk from the
indicated Windows installation ... CATCH 22 jeez, I can't even do a clean
install.

Is there a way to downgrade to the Business Vista, or perhaps I should be
doing all of this from that disk.

Feels like I been rode hard and now all I can do is worry about what comes
next (thus the name.)

"brink" wrote:

Ok problem solved (for now, I will still have to do some cleanup I'm sure)

1) Lowered memory to 2 GB the key clue THANKS

2) Ran Startup Repair off of ORIGINAL install disk. It didn't do squat to
repair anything but it finished and gave me access to a command line. It
said problem unknown sent a solution request to Microsoft and returned a
standard "check recent hardware and software installs ...

3) the command line and the drivers on the install disk is all I ever needed
or wanted, I just couldn't get to it. the original error screen told me the
problem ... ndis.sys was corrupt. So I replaced that file from the install
disk, rebooted and it worked. Hopefully the extra memory caused the
corruption problem and it won't happen again. Looking at the events viewer
there a a pack of incomplete write transactions. We shall see ...

"brink" wrote:

I'm glad to hear you got it up and going again. I do not know if this will work on the type of multi-upgrade version you have, but the next time you need to reinstall it would be worth a try. It will show you how to do a clean install with a upgrade version of Vista.

Clean Install From Upgrade Vista

Shawn