Vista Reboot Loop

LadyMorticia

Heya everyone.

The in-laws and my OH and I have just come back from holiday.

FIL started his laptop yesterday and it loaded to a black screen with the cursor. He left it and it's still the same today so he asked me to have a look at it.

I took the battery out and just started it with the AC and it's stuck in a reboot loop. It gets to a "please wait" screen and stays there for about 10 minutes and then reboots again.

I've tried to boot into safe mode to do a virus and spyware scan but it gets to the black screen where it loads all of the drivers, stays there for a while and then loads to a black screen. Stays there for even longer and then reboots again.

I'm normally really good with techie things but I'm a little stumped. The "blue screen of death" has come up twice and then it just reboots.

I'm not sure if he left it on whilst we were on holiday, or if he left the power switch on and something happened whilst we were away, but it worked fine before we went on holiday.

It's running Vista and is a Fujitsu. I'm not entirely sure how long he's had it but I remember him saying that it's out of warranty, and that it's a ex-display model.

He's a photographer so has alot of things on his laptop. I'm really hoping that he's backed everything up, just incase a reinstall is the only option.

Does anyone know what could be wrong? Or what else to try? I'm not sure if he has an OS or recovery disk so I'll ask him when he gets in.

Thank you in advance.

Im_just_careful

Depending on the make or model you may get a repair/reinstall disk or some kind of hidden partition.

If it came with a disk I would try that (but only "repair" not reinstall).

If not then check if any data is needed from the disk. Even if the PC won't boot then removing the disk from the machine (often fairly easy) then using the disk in a USB caddy may well let you recover the data when plugged into a different machine.

If you want to try recovery on the machine itself then BARTPE might help.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Otherwise you might have got to the "take it to a repair shop" point.

stilltheone

You will need to enter System Restore from the Vista Windows Recovery Environment. You 'll need a disc in that instance.

Follow these instructions in order to create one:

Download and save this Vista Recovery Disc Image to a working computer.
Next, download and install ImgBurn(No need to install the ASK Toolbar. Remove the relevant tick). Burn the Image to Disc. Use this guide(skip step 2b)

If System Restore does not work for you, try Startup Repair from the Vista Windows Recovery Environment

alistair.long

Try this,
Try loading in safe mode, if it loads then you'll have access to your saved files and can tranfer them over, or this silly way but works for me. If I shutdown with the pendrive, I have to load into safemode and saftley remove it, then it will restart in normal. If I try to leave it in and load windows, it will load windows.

If you are geting near windows and it is not doing anything, try hittsin CTRL, Alt + Del (then run c:), windows key and ESC key.

Try a Suse live cd to see if it lets you see the files, hopefully he has a unsecure partition.

If all else fails then I would take the hard disk out and copy it(ghost). and then put it back in and do a recovery using windows vista installation.

Toxteth_OGrady

alistair.long wrote: »

Try loading in safe mode, if it loads then you'll have access to your saved files and can tranfer them over

LadyMorticia wrote: »

I've tried to boot into safe mode to do a virus and spyware scan but it gets to the black screen where it loads all of the drivers, stays there for a while and then loads to a black screen. Stays there for even longer and then reboots again..

:cool:

TOG