Bootable cd/dvd

Vista Home Premium, HP Pavillion dv9500 laptop.

I'm in a jam. I thought I had created 2 bootable cd for emergencies. None working.

I was using/testing Comodo's Time Machine. It said it's snapshot allocation was maxed, and gave the option of deleting all & starting fresh. Took that.

Now my computer (work, income, survival) is completely inaccessible. Windows auto repair says it can't fix it, and, no boot cd / repair disks I have will work.

Any ideas would be welcome.

 

Are you saying that you deleted everything using this program ?
If so, I suggest an undelete program, but not the usual- I have used a program called whee, (not sure of spelling)- I will look it up, and come back- it is a software tool that allows you to undelete a formatted drive, but I will come back shortly, when I have read a little more about Commodo's time Machine.
I would not mess with it unless someone else comes on with advice, so as not to make it more inaccessible

 

I haven't used CTM but I do use a similar product Wondershare Time Shuttle. It has a hot key you can invoke before Windows starts, and I guess CTM has (had?) something similar. Is that not appearing?

 

Having looked at a couple of short videos of it, I see it can mess up your bootloader.
Thi will be apparent, if you do not get the Commodo screen on startup giving you an option to choose a snapshot point.
What this means is that Commodo has taken out the bootloader, as I understand it.

PUT YOUR vISTA DISC IN, AND START UP
cHOOSE REPAIR YOUR COMPUTER
yOUR vISTA SHOULD BE HIGHLIGHTED- CLICK NEXT
CLICK COMMND PROMPT
CLICK ENGLISH/UK/US AS REQUIRED FOR SYSTEM AND KEYBOARD
cHOOSE REPAIR

At the command prompt in the window that shows, type
bootrec /fixbootAND THIS SHOULD FIX IT SO THAT YOU CAN GET BACK INTO vISTA.
If you cannot get back in this way, then I will come back and try to explain the other method, but do not re-install Vist, as yet.
If you did re-install Vista, as long as you do not format, it should keep the original version as a windows old, but I cannot guarantee that, as Commodo has taken away the dogs lead (the bootloader) , but I do not want you to lose your data, by doing that, in case.
You can , also remove the hard drive, and connect it through an external usb caddy, to get your data back by opying to another hard drive- again, I will come back if you need it.

 

I don't know what was deleted and what wasn't. I have zero access to the OS and everything else on the computer. My "bootable" CD rescue / repair programs don't work.

 

I've just tried CTM on an old XP machine and it soon locked me out too. However baklogic is correct, by restoring the MBR it booted again, so the issue is how you are going to restore the MBR. Do you get any response from tapping F8 immediately after powering up? If you can get the boot options menu up with F8 I believe Vista does have a repair option.

 

Reply appreciated.
I have no Vista disk; Vista came with the computer. Whatever remains runs a Windows automated repair; no option for 'command prompt'. Any other way to get to that?
I haven't reinstalled Vista. I do now have a 'bootdisk' with a collection of utilities; I'm running a disk diagnostic for the moment.

I do have a backup from 6/16.

 

Earthling...
I'll take a look as soon as my disk test is done. I can hope.

 

FOR VISTA
bootrec /fixmbr (to write a master boot record)
bootrec /fixboot (to create a new boot sector/loader

 

vISTA REPAIR DISC- i CHECKED THIS OUT, AND THE LINKS ARE WORKING AT THE MOMENT

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/download-windows-vista-x64-recovery-disc/
yOU WILL NEED IMAGEBURN, OR SIMILAR

tHESE ARE TORRENT FILES, AND CAN ONLY BE USED AS A REPAIR- NOT REINSTALLATION
http://www.utorrent.com/downloads

 

You will nee to download utorrent to get it

 

Hello Earthling & Baklogic...
F8 didn't do anything. F9 gave me Boot Menu, with ATCAPI CD & Notebook HD, & enter setup. There is one 'boot option' menu - HD or CD. No repair option. It does automatically go to 'repair'; no input allowed. It always ends with saying it can do nothing.

I don't have any way to get the 2 programs into the laptop. Can they be run from a CD?

 

Hi,
The bootable CD has various tools. It has DOS options, ie, recovery tools, testing tools, partition tools. Any of those likely useful?

 

Well, worth a try. I've sent them an email, and am waiting for a reply. If they're no help, never hurts to ask. Thanks. RD

 

I have an Acronis rescue disk. Tomorrow, if it will recognize my backup/image, I can restore the whole thing. Does that sound like it will make my system functional again?
Thanks.

 

Lucky you! That is exactly what you need. Boot to it, find your image, and restore just the MBR. That should get it booting.

As it was a bit late to suggest it I held off advising you yesterday never to operate this type of program without an imaging program and its rescue disk! You cannot alternate restores between CTM and Acronis, but Acronis is there to catch you if CTM should cause you to fall.

 

Best of luck with Acronis- I have not used that , so I cannot answer that one.
From my visits to Comodo's faq,s and looking at a few video's on u-tube, this Comodo product is definitely something to avoid.
The images I gave link's to, can be downloaded to another pc/laptop, and as they are iso images, burnt to disc using imageburn, or, similar , then put into your laptop, and used as normal for repair purposes.- Handy to keep as emergency discs for laptops that do not come with a full Vista/w7 disc for these sort of problems.
You may be aware that there is a recovery partition on your laptop, and I believe the combination-instead of pressing R' press backspace and f10, or, sometimes f11, BUT-BUT- sometimes these recovery programs will leave your data intact, and just replace Windows, and possibly original programs, SOMETIMES- IT JUST PUTS THEM BACK TO FACTORY CONDITION- IN WHICH CASE I WOULD NOT USE IT, YET- UNTILL YOU HAVE COPIED YOUR DATA.
It may be that Comodo has made your hard drive inaccessable, or, unseen- I found a command, that I have never used, if you can get into the recovery console, at some point, and that proves to be the case,
I found these notes that I offered to someone else with a similar problem, and I believe it also applies to yours.
bootrec /ScanOs
- to see, if your vista installation can still be found...I cannot remember where I found that, as I keep so much on my external hard drive (but someone who has better knowledge of command lines) I tend to archive fixes, when I can, and it often comes in handy, as my knowledge in the command console is very limited- It might help/might not.
I believe the recovery woks the same on yours, but I am not one hundred percent certain- but I would try to recover the mbr, and boot, or, remove the hard drive, and try to access it through disc management on anotherpc/laptop, first.Even try a bootable Linux cd, so that nothing is installed on the laptop, but you might just be able to see your data (If you look into the Linux part of majorgeeks, they might help on that, otherwise look back over my posts , other than this one, and see I found a little to offer before on this.
As you have your original recovery cd, you put it in the cd/dvd rom, and when starting follow the HP recovery : from the link
http://support.gateway.com/s/SOFTWARE/Medialess/MLXPH2/7515017su3.shtml
After the computer is turned off, disconnect all USB devices except the keyboard and mouse. This includes USB devices
such as a printer, scanner, removable storage, or camera.
Turn on the computer. When prompted to press R, press CTRL+BACKSPACE instead, to access the hidden Manufacturer Menu.
Note: Do not press R or the computer will start to the CD System Recovery.

Then as from
http://www.computersurgeons.com/FAQs.aspx

6. Select option <4> clear the partition table.

7. The following message appears: No Operating System Installed or Partition CorruptedPress "R" to perform a full system recovery. Do not press R. Instead, press and hold down ctrl, then press Backspace to bring up the Tools Menu.

8. Select option <5> erase the Master Boot Record of drive.

The following message may appear: No Operating System Installed or Partition Corrupted Press "R" to perform a full system recovery.
NOTE: If there are no partitions, the following message appears: No MBR or master boot record found.Continue using these steps.

Do not press R. Instead press and hold down ctrl, then press Backspace to bring up the Tools Menu.

Select option <6> wipe all sectors of drive.

An Erasing Hard Drive progress bar will appear. This process will take approximately from 15 minutes to over one hour, depending on the size of the hard drive.

When the hard drive is completely erased, the following message is displayed:

No Operating System Installed or Partition CorruptedPress "R" to perform a full system recovery

9. Press R to begin the automatic System Recovery process.percent certain.

I hope somewhere here, we can help you get your data-
Have to go-:wave

 

Ray - as you are eight hours behind us here I guess you might be looking at your problem soon. Although I said it above, let me stress again that you only have to restore the MBR from your image. You can restore the disk image too if you want, but that is not relevant to your problem. It would also overwrite any files that postdate the image.

Good luck with it and let us know how you get on please.

 

MBR- That is your main aim -without losing your data.

 

Hello Earthling & baklogic...
Thanks for the time and effort; much appreciated.

I got lucky. I used Acronis 2010 rescue disk, and restored my hard drive. My last backup was 6/18, so it was recent. An hour later my laptop booted perfectly. Sigh of RELIEF.

Ya'll have a glorius day.

RD

 

Acronis does it again :cool

Thanks for the feedback Ray.

 

Coming back and letting majorgeeks know how it was solved helps others, who might have got caught out, using this Time machine, as Comodo never showed an answer- Others might take note, and try a similar approach i experimenting with these programs.

The most important thing is you never got too desperate, and lost your data,

:wave