PC fails to start! HELP

june2rose

Hi folks, i,ve been having major trouble starting up my pc for an age now. A short version of a long story of my dilema, a friend of a friend has been trying to fix the on going problem with limited success finally deciding that my hard drive was on its way out. He replaced the hard drive saying it was ok now, replaced all the cables turned on the power and blow me still the same problem exists as shown here what I see on my screen, the first page loads with pc info then this:
Windows Boot Manager

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:
1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer.
2. Choose your language settings, and then click "next".
3. Click "Repair your computer."

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assitance.

File: \Boot\BCD

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.
limited knowledge of computers but willing. advice please.

fwor

I'll have a guess - you're running Windows Vista?

And that you don't have a Windows installation CD/DVD (because if you did you would have followed the instructions)?

If that's true, there are places on the internet where you can download a "recovery center" version of the Windows installation CD - which can only be used for that purpose and not to do an installation from scratch.

It's fairly easy to Google for those words and find a source, but I'm not going to post any links here, because I personally have no way of knowing whether they are genuine and will only do to your PC what they say they will. The safest way (obviously) would be for you to find a genuine Windows installation CD/DVD and use that.

John_the_Boy

This link looks good

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistadeployment/thread/8647c865-59a2-44dc-8be2-1a65731bbe38

I have personally used method 2 to repair my W7 boot record

Method 2: Rebuild BCD
============================================
1. Put the Windows Vista installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
7. Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR, and then press ENTER.
8. Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT, and then press ENTER.
9. Type BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD, and then press ENTER.

dave2

Some background details might help people here, like is your computer "off the shelf" (Dell, HP etc), and is the new drive basically running a backup image of the old drive, or did you do a new install from a Windows disk?

May well be completely off here but this rings a bell of an issue I had. Windows Vista (SP1 on the disk) and an Intel motherboard chipset.

Basically Vista installed OK but then would have problems booting. Sorry to be vague but I had to deal with both this and an actual HDD failure at the same time, bit of a nightmare!

The root of MY issue was that 1) I had confused that Vista, unlike XP, came with a driver to support SATA; 2) the Intel driver for my motherboard had a description that made it sound more like some natty application and 3) I was used to other companies who give you one file to conveniently install all the drivers you need for that product.

However eventually I installed the Intel Matrix Storage Manager which fixed it. Note however I did this at the same time as a fresh install of Windows, and of course the Intel driver is only for Intel chipsets.

Actually, good job to be reminded of this, must file a note in with my Vista disk because I'll forget next time!