Vista booting problem - need help desperately!

aidan_dunne

Hi folks, hope you can help me with a problem that's wrecking my head at this stage.

Trying to sort out a PC World-bought Advent 9117 laptop for someone. On startup, a black screen comes up saying "Windows Boot Manager" and gives an opinion to boot into Microsoft Windows Vista (Home Premium, for the record) or run the Windows Memory Diagnostic. The memory diagnostic says everything is okay and I confirmed this by running another memory checker. Now, if I just go ahead and highlight Microsoft Windows Vista and hit return, Vista boots as normal and there's no problems whatsoever with it. Just having this screen pop up all the time on bootup is an annoyance and I'd like to get rid of it (as would the person who owns the laptop! ).

So, I figured it might be something to do with the bootup settings so I downloaded and installed VistaBootPro and EasyBCD to try messing around with the bootup settings. From a bit of playing around, I discovered that the bootloader seems to be detecting 3 things on bootup: Vista itself (on C:), Windows Recovery Environment (on S: - "System" which I gather is a partition that holds recovery information, would I be right?), and what is called Earlier Version of Windows, also on S:. The first two will do what they're supposed to do when selected but the Earlier Version of Windows brings up another black screen when selected which says that Windows failed to start because the \ntldr is missing or corrupt and gives an error code of 0xc000000f.

Now, I'm guessing that it's this "Earlier Version of Windows" and it's corrupt or missing NTLDR which is causing the trouble to begin with. The only problem is, I can't fix it or delete it because it seems to be on this S: partition which also holds all the recovery information too. Even though there doesn't actually seem to be anything on that partition at all but the file properties says something's taking up space (probably hidden or something, yeah?). What really takes the biscuit is I'm wondering what this earlier version of Windows is supposed to be, seeing as this was a brand new machine and Vista is the only operating system on it. Is it possible it originally had XP on it and PC World just upgraded it or someting?

This is really wrecking my head at this stage and I really just want to have Vista boot up normally on startup and boot through without any problems. I tried getting rid of that S: partition using an XP disc and it did so but, when I went to restart it had a fit and I had to do a recovery in order to restore it so Vista would boot again. Whatever is on that S: partition is obviously needed in order to boot as well.

Added to all this, being PC World and all, there's no Vista disc, just this sh!tty Tech Guys recovery program to reinstall Windows and I don't have a Vista disc either so I'm really screwed.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated, folks! Cheers!

Overheal

well the layman's method would be to nuke S but lets not get carried away. I know theres a way to configure the machine to skip this dialog altogether I just - aww my turtle just yawned how cute - I just dont know exactly what the method is. Something to do with the boot.ini but I dont think vista reads from the boot.ini file anymore. (why bother to post you may ask? cos it will help someone more intelligent recall the answer! )

aidan_dunne

Yeah, I hear what you're saying about just nuking S: altogether, Overheal, and that's what I thought would be the simpliest solution too. Unfortunately, as I said, when I deleted that partition using the XP disc, the machine threw a fit when I rebooted and wouldn't boot at all then. I had to use a cut-down Vista recovery disc (just the very basic recovery and repair options on it) to get things back to the way they were before. Seems whatever is on that S: partition is needed in some way in order to get the machine to boot at all.

And you're right, I'm sure there is some way to bypass that screen that comes up. As you said, there used to be a way to do it by editing the boot.ini file in previous versions of Windows but Vista's got a whole new way of doing things and I thought VistaBootPro and EasyBCD would be a help in some way but it hasn't been so far (unless there's something I'm doing completely wrong with both, which is entirely possible of course! But I've tried loads of different options and ways of reconfiguring the bootloader with both but to no avail so far).

Just wondering has anyone else had any similar kinds of experience with any of these laptops or any other computers from PC World and how they go about configuring their pre-installed operating systems and recovery partition. I'm just curious as to what this S: "System" partition is and if it actually is[i/] the partition that holds the recovery software or what it's significance is at all. I would have thought a partition like that would be hidden anyway. This one is available to view and browse, alright, but there only seems to be to 50 or 60 megs of stuff on it which isn't viewable. :confused

Anyway, thanks for the post, Overheal, and any other help or advice from anyone would be much appreciated. Thanks!

tman

If you have a Vista disc (not a recovery disc), try booting from that, choosing to repair, choose the OS and then choose system recovery options.
Choose the command prompt option here, then enter the following commands;
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot

That should replace the boot sector with the standard one, without the extra crap
You should hopefully be able to nuke the S: partition then...

/edit
Sorry, just read the full OP so I guess this isn't a lot of help... If you can get your hands on a Vista disc it should sort it out

JæKæ

right click on "computer"
go to properties
click on "advanced system settings"
click on the settings button for "startup and recovery"
check the box that says "time to display list of operating systems"
change that seonds to something lower that you like
check the box that says "time to display recovery options..."

Overheal

aidan_dunne wrote: »

Seems whatever is on that S: partition is needed in some way in order to get the machine to boot at all.

Well thats dodgy.

You used an XP disc - but you want to Install vista as I read from your original post?

Well I dont know why its such a big effing deal as to why they dont make the Vista ISO available on microsoft's website but I'm sure they have their reasons. Ultimately though theres no harm in a friend lending his friend the disc so long as they each have their own license keys.

I assume you have the OEM license key sticker somewhere on the machine? Retain that, and youre going to want to find someone that has the Vista OEM CD (unlikely) or download it from the net, and burn it. Oddly enough, OEMs do not issue recovery discs: I have this same concern with HP.

If you had a recovery partition to begin with it should have been labeled "Recovery" and to restore your factory settings you would go to Vista-Start and launch the Backup and Recovery center.

Soundman

Does THIS help or explain things any better?

aidan_dunne

Just an update on this. I managed to get it sorted out yesterday using a combination of that cut-down recovery disc, VistaBootPro, instructions I found on one of the Microsoft sites and the commands tman gave me. Many thanks for all the help and advice, folks!