BSOD on boot....Vista

Hey folks. I've got a Dell Inspiron 9400 running Vista Home Premium that was giving me an error stating "\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32|CONFIG\SYSTEM is corrupt of missing" after the post screen (and obviously not booting). I ran startup repair through the Windows diagnostic utility, and now I just get a bluescreen whenever I try to boot. I know it's a little vague, but does anybody have any ideas? I tried Last Known Good Configuration and I've also tried Safe Mode. Neither work. Thanks

 

I have a Vista disc, but for whatever reason it won't boot. Not quite sure why... This may be a dumb question, but can I use the recovery console feature in an XP disc (The repair option prior to installation)? I've used it to work on Win 2000 in the past with success. Just a thought...

 

Gotcha. Alright so I need to get this DVD to boot then.

 

Yup. There's also a boot menu you can access right after the post. Still not working, tried it on another laptop too but got the same thing.

 

Tried the recovery disc as well, sorry I should have mentioned that. It tells me that "startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically".

 

Ok here we go.... I just tried my recovery disc again and found the command promt option. Sorry, must have been asleep before. Entered the bootrec.exe command and got four options, /FixMbr,/FixBoot, /ScanOS, and RebuildBcd. Which one am I interested in here?

 

Tried the fixboot command, it said "completed successfully", but now when I try to boot I just get a flashing cursor at the top left of the screen. Tried startup repair again after that, same thing. What about writing a new MBR?

 

Tried fixmbr.... still nothing.

 

Just an update. Tried rolling the machine back using system restore, still won't boot. As I said in my earlier post, I tried fixmbr, but got nothing. Could I rewrite the MBR completely, and if so, how do I go about it? When I run bootrec /rebuildbcd it tells me there are 0 total identified Windows installations. Thanks.

 

Try following this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE8y0cYYhZM

 

At the command "ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old" it states "The system cannot find the file specified". Also, I booted into parted magic, and it shows the entire 160 GB of the HDD as unallocated, yet, all the files and documents are still available. Weird.

 

So your BCD file is missing? Continue with the next step, bootrec /rebuildbcd. What response do you see?

 

I get this:

Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 0
This operation completed successfully.

 

That sounds like really bad news, lemme re-read the thread and think about this.

 

Can you give us some details on what Parted Magic tells you about the drive/partitions/files?

I think the drive should have 3-5 (maybe 6!) partitions, assuming it's the original drive and depending on the original OS and which Recovery method it was cloned with.

Have you tried TestDisk?

 

Parted Magic is showing one partition of 149.05 GB (the HDD is 160 GB) when I check it with the partition editor, which it has labelled as "Unallocated" for both the partition and the file system. When I go to "My Documents" on the PM desktop, it shows all my files and data (and lets me access them) under the OS folder. However, when I use the command prompt through Windows RE it gives me two partitions, C: which contains the OS etc. and D: as well, which is labelled "Recovery". It is definately the original drive, and I haven' tried test disk, but I have run CHKDSK /R through the command prompt.

 

Those stats certainly suggest it's the original disk. Have you got all your data backed up from it? If TestDisk doesn't give us some clues as to what's going on, I'm pretty much stumped on what happened here.

Had you previously made a repair or clean install from a non-Dell disc or used any partition tools?

 

Nope, the only stuff I've done to it was through startup repair in Windows RE and the command prompt through Windows RE. What I did it detailed at the very start of the thread. I've downloaded testdisk, does it run through the GUI or will it boot without a working Windows installation?

 

Ok, TestDisk I've only used remotely under XP, I think.

Providing you have downloaded the correct binaries.

TestDisk Step by Step

 

Problem solved. Ran Testdisk through a terminal in Parted Magic and it works fine now. The problem was that the wrong partition was desigated at the bootable partition. How this happened... I'm not sure. I designated the OS partition as 'Primary, bootable', and all other partitions as 'Logical', and now it boots fine. Outstanding work Satrow and others! Thanks.

 

That's a relief to all of us

I'm pleased you got to fix it, I'll have to carry a copy of TestDisk, it seems to be pretty good!

Hmm, thinking a little, there may be knock-on issues with the Dell recovery or testing partitions not working now, a trip to the Dell forums is called for, I think, checkout exactly how they were cloned. Get a good backup now, in case you can't access the other (bootable) partitions later to diagnose or reinstall.