Hi hope someone can help.

I installed vista sp2 yesterday and now my laptop won't start. it offers two options, start in repair mode or start normally.

I have an 18 month old Toshiba Equiium running vista home P 32 bit.

If I start normally, the microsoft logo comes up and then the screen blips blue momentarily then it goes off. If I run the repair, it scans for faults, then prompts to run a system restore. I take this option and then it takes many minutes to attempt repairs - ultimately ending with 'windows cannot repair..."

there is a log with lots of 0x0 type errors notices (which are meaningles to me)

I can't even get to the point where I could elect to restore to last best save or whatever.

I have all my docs backed up on a portable HD but I cannot get past this failed repair message.

Any clue where I should go next?

Many thanks

Ian (sending this from an xp pc)

Thanks USAMA,

I am afraid I cannot get anywhere:

I do not understand what you mean by "boot into the repair console"

my only options are to let it run to the black screen (windows error recovery environment, where i have the option to run the repair, or start normally. if I start normally, it blue screens and restarts brining me back to the error recovery environment.)

If I select the repair tool then as I said before, it searches, prompts for system recovery, I clik ok and it attempts to repair but fails, suggests I contact system admin - won't let me into advanced - says my account has been disabled

I can press F2 or F12 but don't know what to do in there

I do have a Toshiba recovery disc for use with F12 but it says it will loose all data (I have my docs backed up on a portable)

but will it take out my programmes (I can reload,) will it remove vista? - as I have no way of reinstalling it

Kind regards

Ian

wow............................

DUDE I had the same exact problem.

look, reinstall vista os.

UPDATE all your drivers through device manager.

and than you can install SP2 trust me i went through this weeks ago

Thanks guys, appreciate the help, but, how do I force the pc to boot from the downloaded disc? I can't seem to make it do anything? - I am thinking I have to do somthing using F12? but I have no idea what

thanks again

Ian Taylor:

A question and an answer.
-------------------------------------------------------------
First: If you start up the computer and immediately and continuously begin pressing the
F8 key, does this take you to Safe Mode?
-------------------------------------------------------------
How do I force the PC to boot from the downloaded disc?

When you first start the PC, while the screen is still dark, eventually some text should
appear at screen-bottom. It will offer various choices and keypresses to access these choices.
The actual wording varies by manufacturer. On mine, I press repeatedly on Esc .
This takes me to Boot Mgr. From here I can choose which drive to have the PC boot from.
Your Toshiba should have something similar.

Ardneh

Hi Guys,

again, thanks for the help - wish I was more savvy with the computers - I went through this: Startup Repair ISO's (originally posted 22Mar08) - Vox

downloaded on the other pc, burned onto disc ect - got it to run (so I can boot from a disc) - but all it was was the same recovery console that I was describing before - which my laptop does automatically

however, I wrote down the report deails:

Root causes found = 1

unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem,

Repair action: system restore
Result: Failed. Error code 0x490
time taken= 0 ms

Repair action: system integrity check + repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0x2
time taken = 732643 ms

these were the only two 'failures' in the report, everything else said 'completed successfully'

does this shed any light on it

Many thanks

Ian

Ok, since doing that, I went back to the laltop and noticed that although it was the same repair programme as I had access to, my on-board version did not offer the other repair tools.

so I now had access to the command prompt and also to restore options

I tried to restore to a previous restore point - but despite it saying it was restored, the problem remained.

so I tried the command stuff:

fixmbr - completed succesfully
fixboot - success
rebuildBcd: Total identified instances of windows = 0

chkdsk:
type of system = NFTS

Cannot lock current drive. Windows cannot run disc checking on the volume because it is write protected

I also tried /ScanOs: total identified instances of windows - 0

I then downloaded the Hitachi HDD diagnositic onto a disk (other pc) from USAMA's site and ran that,

in quick mode - no issues

in advanced mode - Problem detected 0x70

does this help?

Kind regards

Ian