My Old Laptop Won't Startup/ Recovery isn't Working

mhan

Member
Hi guys,

I have a very old VAIO vgn-sr190 that initially came with windows xp pre-installed but had a windows vista boot disc to back it up. I've been running the windows xp pretty much with no problem up until recently, when I decided to change to windows vista as xp doesn't get any support anymore. So I did and unfortunately I've been running into multitude of problems such as crashes, freezes, etc. requiring me to run checkdisk and generally giving me a hard time. But for the most part I've been living with it for the past 3 weeks or so...that is until now.

My latest ordeal started with windows freezing up, forcing me to do a hard reset, at which point it went straight into startup repair mode without asking me to do safe-mode or anything. It looked like it was working (the progress bar was sorta moving) So I let it be for a couple hours until I realized it's not working at all, the hard disk light was off. So I loaded my original windows vista recovery discs and did another hard reset hoping to at least be able to system restore or maybe reinstall my windows in worst case scenario. But even that doesn't work as it freezes midway into loading my recovery disc. I tried going into F8 mode without the recovery disc, saw a bunch of options, but non of them work (all of them lead to the same startup repair tool which doesn't progress, only a bar that is moving endlessly).

Should I be saying goodbye to this old laptop? I've had so much memories with it...

Thanks in advance,

Mike
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    VAIO Notebook VGN-SR190
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.26-2.8 GHz
    Memory
    2GB DDR2 SDRAM

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 8.1 Industry Pro x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion Elite HPE-250f
    CPU
    Intel i7 860 Quad core 2.8 ghz
    Memory
    8 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 gb ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Alienware 25 AW2521HF
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 &1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-elite-hpe-250f/
  • Operating System
    Windows 2012 R2 Data center/Linux Mint
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Poweredge T140
    CPU
    i3 9100 3.6GHz, 8M cache, 4C/4T
    Memory
    8GB 2666MT/s DDR4 ECC UDIMM
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB & 360 GB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetailstxn/poweredge-t140?~ck=bt
I suggest that you use a bootable distribution of linux to recover your data and then perform a clean install of Vista. http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117366-clean-install-full-version-vista.html

Thanks for the answer,

I don't much care about the data as I've recently converted from xp to this vista and still have all my backup on an external drive. The only important thing is to get the laptop to work. As I said I did try to use my windows recovery disk to no avail, I also tried to use a free bootable partition manager only to get the same result.

Just a bit more info: if I let it go to normal startup repair, it goes past the first loading screen, brings up the window saying "repairing, this may take several minutes" (or something similar), and then stops working 5 seconds in. If I boot from my recovery disc however, it freezes on the first loading screen.

Is this a hardware issue?
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    VAIO Notebook VGN-SR190
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.26-2.8 GHz
    Memory
    2GB DDR2 SDRAM
Some more info:

I just tried Avanquest Rescue Disk (some very old dvd's and cd's I had lying around), clicked the recovery tool and got the warning "The registry hive is corrupted: C\Windows\System32\Config\Software"...
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    VAIO Notebook VGN-SR190
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.26-2.8 GHz
    Memory
    2GB DDR2 SDRAM

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 8.1 Industry Pro x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion Elite HPE-250f
    CPU
    Intel i7 860 Quad core 2.8 ghz
    Memory
    8 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 gb ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Alienware 25 AW2521HF
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 &1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-elite-hpe-250f/
  • Operating System
    Windows 2012 R2 Data center/Linux Mint
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Poweredge T140
    CPU
    i3 9100 3.6GHz, 8M cache, 4C/4T
    Memory
    8GB 2666MT/s DDR4 ECC UDIMM
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB & 360 GB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetailstxn/poweredge-t140?~ck=bt
Hopefully a clean install will do the trick. Your recovery media might be corrupted. Request an iso download from here. http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/296167-vista-iso-download.html

Thanks again for the reply,

as I was waiting around I looked for some other softwares, one of which being HDD Regenerator, it persumabely fixes bad sectors, so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's been running for 4 hours, so far it's found/fixed 390 bad sectors and the progress bar is only at 10% of the way...so it's gonna take a couple of days. In the meanwhile I'm going to download the iso from the link you provided, as my next step =)

I'll let you know what happens.

Thanks again
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    VAIO Notebook VGN-SR190
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.26-2.8 GHz
    Memory
    2GB DDR2 SDRAM
I hope that you didn't buy it because Windows also attempts to fix sectors. However not all bad sectors can be fixed with any software.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 8.1 Industry Pro x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion Elite HPE-250f
    CPU
    Intel i7 860 Quad core 2.8 ghz
    Memory
    8 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 gb ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Alienware 25 AW2521HF
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 &1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-elite-hpe-250f/
  • Operating System
    Windows 2012 R2 Data center/Linux Mint
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Poweredge T140
    CPU
    i3 9100 3.6GHz, 8M cache, 4C/4T
    Memory
    8GB 2666MT/s DDR4 ECC UDIMM
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB & 360 GB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetailstxn/poweredge-t140?~ck=bt
I am not expert,but i think your old laptop might be having some hardware issues.As you said that it came with pre- installed windows XP and it running smoothly. It is possible that your old laptop is not compatible with windows Vista. And generally these kinds of issues like crashes, freezes, hanging are arise due to registry errors, then i would like to recommend you to use some best registry cleaning tool to fix these kind of issues.
 

My Computer

...then i would like to recommend you to use some best registry cleaning tool to fix these kind of issues.

It is the general consensus here and our sister forums NOT to use registry cleaners. They usually cause more problems than they fix, they don't help with performance, and a repair of the registry is done using a windows recovery disk rather than a third party program if it is bad enough that users are having blue screens. Also the registry isn't the only source of freezes or blue screens but also drivers or corruption and yes hardware failure. I agree that in this case the cause could be hardware but the first step in figuring out the problem is to attempt a repair or reinstall of Windows rather than assume hardware. Looking at the model's specs I do agree that it isn't compatible with Vista unless he got additional ram but that wouldn't result in blue screens. The OP probably shouldn't have upgraded Windows though. If he only has a gig of ram he would likely run into slowness.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 8.1 Industry Pro x64
    Manufacturer/Model
    HP Pavillion Elite HPE-250f
    CPU
    Intel i7 860 Quad core 2.8 ghz
    Memory
    8 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon HD 5770 1 gb ram
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Alienware 25 AW2521HF
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080 &1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.cnet.com/products/hp-pavilion-elite-hpe-250f/
  • Operating System
    Windows 2012 R2 Data center/Linux Mint
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Poweredge T140
    CPU
    i3 9100 3.6GHz, 8M cache, 4C/4T
    Memory
    8GB 2666MT/s DDR4 ECC UDIMM
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    1 TB & 360 GB x2
    Other Info
    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetailstxn/poweredge-t140?~ck=bt
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