Please help! Installed Vista service pack and laptop now fails to boot Windows

dccb

Hi all,

I'm having some major problems with my laptop - as of yesterday I installed the latest Windows Vista service pack through Windows Updates and it installed, but now the computer won't start up properly. When I turn it on, 'Startup repair' launches and states that Windows can't repair the computer automatically. When I 'view problem details' it states:

Problem Signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairV2
Problem Signature 01: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 02: 6.0.6001.18000.6.0.6001.18000
Problem Signature 03: 6
Problem Signature 04: 1507351
Problem Signature 05: CorruptVolume
Problem Signature 06: CorruptFile
Problem Signature 07: 3221226017
Problem Signature 08: 1
Problem Signature 09: WrpRepair
Problem Signature 10: 0
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

It says in the diagnostics 'Startup Repair has tried several times but still cannot determine the cause of the problem.' I've tried going to the advanced options and doing a system restore, which it says has been successful but then returns to the same system recovery menu when it restarts. I've also tried the memory diagnostic tool but it doesn't come up with anything, and the Complete PC Restore doesn't come up with any valid backups. I'm completely at my wits end with this, can any of you help at all? If so I'd be very grateful for anything you can suggest to fix it and get my computer back to normal!

If it helps, my laptop's a Dell Latitude D830 with 4GB RAM, dual core, running 32bit Windows Vista (home).

Thanks for your time and help with this

JasX

yesterday? the last vista servivce pack was issued April 2009 ! -if you've been out of date with security patches for that long god knows how many viruses and bits of malware you have screwing up your operating system.... those things aren't exactly 'optional' these days

dccb

Hi JasX, thanks for your comments - I appreciate what you mean, but I was surprised too as it's set to auto check and add any new updates every evening, and I run Norton Antivirus' checkup regularly - I had just run its 'one button checkup' that evening (a message had just popped up saying it found a trojan, which it removed, but I did the scan too, and then thought I'd check for any Windows Updates just in case - the only update it found / recommended was the service pack so I thought I'd better add it). I'm presuming it was the service pack as that was the last thing I did on the laptop before it stopped working, but perhaps it's something else? It had all been working fine up to that point but wouldn't reboot correctly after installing it?

dragon934

A long shot method I've heard about, is taking one of your RAM sticks out (assuming you have 2x 2gb sticks) it occurs from a Hardware issue like everything else with that damn OS. That said it is probably not going to work, so it might be worth getting hold of a drive caddy and copying everything of any value (photos/docs etc) to a safer place, before reinstalling vista. taking the ram out is worth a go in the mean time, but don't forget to take the battery out of your laptop aswell as disconnect the power before fiddling around, and of course earth yourself when touching sensitive H/W. (if the ram method works you'll still have to run the start up repair

dccb

Thanks for your advice dragon934 - I've tried taking the RAM out having backed up my C drive but it still does the same as before... I've now opened up the system's 'symptom tree' program and selected 'cannot boot the OS' and it's running through a long list of tests at the moment. So far it's saying it has passed everything so I'm still none the wiser about what to do, I'm hoping that there's going to be some way to make it better

dragon934

for the amount of time it would take, i'd personally copy all of the important files of and reinstall windows, and keep backups in future, but thats just what I would do. I haven't come across anyone who solved this yet

JasX

I agree with dragon, since you've backed everything up* opting for a full clean install will prove much less of a headache and stand a much better chance of success.

Did your machine come with reinstalllation disks or a recovery partition? if disks you have a full set of install disks? if not is it a major brand like dell where you can get all the drivers readily off their website?

(*and be sure you have, photo's document's emails-not always obvious where these are stored, you have installl disks for all programs you've installed and/or have a rough idea where to redownload all your open source/freeware from)

Also after you've done this once its a good idea to put all the disks and redownloaded program files burnt to CD in a box in one place so if ever you need to rebuild the thing because its broken (or has got slow and clogged up with junk/viruses over time) you'll have everything in one place and be able to do a rebuild fairly quickly, you could also consider taking an image of the drive...