boot error

[jjerome1]

I own a computer repair business and have a customer who brought me a non-booting Vista Ultimate 32-bit laptop. She would prefer to keep all of her settings, documents, programs etc so I have been trying for a couple days to do repair the boot error. After most of the normal fixes and looking through these forums I am completely baffled. Here is what I've tried:

1. Laptop automatically boots to repair screen, and finally says that it cannot repair windows automatically. tried with and without booting from Vista CD
2. most bootrec commands, chkdsk /r, and other common useful commands from the command prompt find errors, but do not fix the problem. tried with and without vista CD
3. install an upgrade over the existing installation with Vista install CD, says that upgrade is disabled. (is there a way to enable it?)
4. restoring from a restore point. Runs for ~12 hours before I cancel.
5. booting to a LINUX rescue disk (bitdefender). all user data is found in explorer. viruses are found and deleted, but still doesn't fix anything

I've just about given up and decided to tell her that she needs a fresh install. I've copied her user folders onto a thumbstick, but I know she'll lose all of her programs and settings.

Are there any suggestions before I admit defeat?

 

[Shadowjk]

Have you tried Repairing the Master Boot Record (MBR)

Boot into a Recovery Disk

If you don't have one Make one using this Tutorial Thanks to Brink.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/141820-create-recovery-disc.html


And Boot into that Disk then open Command Prompt and enter the Following:

bootrec.exe /fixboot

Press enter

Then enter this:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

Press enter

Then try booting into Vista

Hope This Heps,
Josh

 

[jjerome1]

I've tried both of those commands. They "complete successfully" but then the laptop boots to startup repair, which subsequently fails.

When "Startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically ", these are the problem details it gives:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairV2
Problem Signature 01: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 02: 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6001.18000
Problem Signature 03: 6
Problem Signature 04: 2949165
Problem Signature 05: CorruptFile
Problem Signature 06: CorruptFile
Problem Signature 07: 3221226021
Problem Signature 08: 2
Problem Signature 09: SystemRestore
Problem Signature 10: 0
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

I'm about to copy all of the user data and do a fresh install. She'll lose her programs, but I've recovered her documents and pictures

 

[Shadowjk]

Do you get a Blue screen? or an Error code?

 

[jjerome1]

No blue screen or error code. It boots directly to recovery mode. I think there is a recovery partition on the HD that it is booting to after Vista doesn't start normally, which subsequently fails to fix the problem . If I boot from the CD, recovery also fails to repair startup.

If I force it to boot to the windows partition, it goes to a black screen with the label 'Windows Boot Manager" it gives the following error details:

File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: the selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt

I've tried to fix this problem directly by renaming winload.exe to winload.exe.old and running recovery, tried copying winload.exe, tried bootrec commands, and have tried all of these from both the recovery disk and the HD recovery partition with no luck.

The laptop came with a resintallation disk, which I've tried to use for an "upgrade," but when I try this it says that the upgrade option is disabled. Is there a way to enable it? I don't know if there are service packs that have been installed, is there a way to find out?