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August 4th, 2008 11:00
Cannot Boot- exhausted all avenues
I have a 1501 laptop running Vista Basic. The laptop is 13 months old so it is just out of warranty. After restarting the computer one day, the thing just refused to boot. It went to the repair screen and I tried several system restores, each time going further back with my restore point. Each time it would tell me restore was successful but then it could not reboot and I was back where I started. I have no restore points remaining.
I have tried to boot into safe mode. It gets to the crcdisk.sys and goes no further. I have seen much discussion about this on the web, but most of those issues seem to stem from new installations, upgrades, or changed drivers. I had none of the above so I am not sure if this is related. It does go to a screen beyond this and give me the larger safe mode cursor error, but then it just dies and goes back to the login screen.
The Microsoft repair tool finds no errors (0x0) for all of their test and tells me they are unable to fix the computer. I did run the Dell diagnostics and it found three bad blocks on the hard drive, but could those three blocks be stopping the entire computer from booting? I have run a chkdsk /F (full or extended or whatever they call it) and it "fixed" what errors it found. I have used the microsoft tool to rebuild the MBR and to Bootfix. None of these things seem to help.
HELP!!! I cannot lose the data on this drive. I have no backup (who would figure that this would die after only one year of light use???). Through the command prompt, I can see that all my files are still there, I just cannot get the machine to boot. It gets all the way to the point before the login screen (the small cursor arrow appears and responds to mouse movement) but then it just cycles back to the start up Bios screen.
All suggestions are welcome! PLEASE help.
ejn63
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August 4th, 2008 15:00
Yes, even one bad block in the right (or wrong) place can stop Windows from booting, and yes, the drive should be replaced.
To attempt recovery, remove the drive, mount it in a 2.5" SATA enclosure, and attach it to a working system by USB. Copy your data.
Then replace the internal drive - any 2.5" 9.5 mm SATA drive will work.
hotrent1
239 Posts
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August 4th, 2008 19:00
If you insert the install disc in the computer, turn it on. If the bios does not see the bootloader, it should check on the install disc for one. the computer will ask if you want to boot from cd drive. DO NOT PUSH ANY KEY. In a few seconds it will read the boot loader and boot into your vista os. If you push a key it will load the install program and try to install new os. After you boot into your windows os, get on net and google EasyBCD 1.7.2.(latest version) Here is site http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 Install this software and go to the manage bootloader tab and hit write bootloader. Then when you reboot it should boot onto your system.
Mine has done this several times, usually when i updated driver, once when i went into bios and changed a value.