okay so ive been running windows Vista 64-bit (Core 2 Quad CPU, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD) on friday i ran all of my antivirus, spyware, and maleware removal programs after that was done i defraged my HDD Friday Night when i got up saturday morning optimized my HDD and went to work for 12 hrs (both of those options is offered by JKDefrag/MyDefrag [i cant remember what its called right now]) when i got home everything was still running, and it was finished so i shut down my pc now i cannot get to my password screen for Vista if i select start windows normally it just keeps cycling over and over again it will flash a blue screen (no text) then the system will reboot if i select safe mode it starts to load all of the drivers (i see a long list scroll by) and then i see this V it sits at this driver for a bit, then it restarts now i have performed a back up a couple of weeks before but what has me at my wits end is this i dont want to loose all of my product keys such as Vista, Office 2010, Octane Renderer ($119), all of my saved files all of the guides that i have made and saved and all of my tax info so what should i do? should i go and get another HDD and do a fresh install on the new drive then try to do a restore and use the back up file that i did would that even work? how big of a HDD should i get? or is there an easier way to fix my pc? i appreciate any help you guys can give me thanks
It may be that something has corrupted along the way, It could be a hardware issue or it could be down to software. Did you restart your PC at all between the processes that you listed in the top paragraph? The Crcdisk.sys file may not be loading, or it could have loaded and it's just the last file that loads in the sequence before something else goes wrong. Could you give us the stop code that appears when it blue screens?
On Xp (I cant remember if its an option on Vista or 7) when you boot from the windows disk and choose to install it will find the existing windows install and offer a repair option. If you get this option on vista it is definitely worth a go. Of course its a good idea to back up the drive first but its also a good idea to have a backup in place at all times for this kind of issue.
It would be wise to ascertain what the issue is before deciding the best way to recover important data.
the blue screen flashes for just a sec so it doesnt actually post an error code ill have to google how to repair Vista just to make sure thanks for the info guys :-D
Repairing Windows effectively installs a clean version of the OS over the top of the existing OS, keeping all your other files intact. It does, however, mean that you'll lose any installed apps, settings etc. - so I'd use the repair just long enough to get into Windows, backup all your important stuff (apps, keys, docs etc.) before going back and doing a proper formatted clean install of Windows.
Did you install any updates from windows? Only asking as my laptop stopped booting with a very similar issue, and the hdd is dead in it now, but it showed no signs of this before it happened
First of all I'd stick in the Windows vista disk and get into system recovery (where you have options like system restore, system image, command prompt and start up repair) and try and use command prompt with: Sfc /scannow Or Chkdsk /f And see if they return anything useful. Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2
1. As others have said, try booting from your windows disc and see if the repair options can fix the boot issues. 2. If that doesn't work, don't panic. You won't have lost software licence keys you've paid for as you should be able to get those back from the publishers. Hopefully all your data is intact. It's likely your OS has just been borked but your data will still be there. 3a. (What I have done in the past) If you need to do a clean install. The safest option is to take out (unplug) the drive(s) with all your important data on and install the OS on a new/spare drive. You can then plug in your old drives and copy / paste your data across (You have permission issues but they are fixable). 3b. Another option is to to boot from a linux boot ISO and see if you can access your data from that, and then copy it to a USB device. 3c. A third option would be to try a windows install (or upgrade to win7) on top of your existing install. I wouldn't risk this myself, not on top of important data. But if you copied the non booting drive first (using drive image or similar) then you could work on a copy. I wouldn't run with this repaired OS personally but it'd be enough to get your recent data back. 3d. A fourth option is to plug the drive into another PC (A friend?) and copy the data off that way. 3e. Option 5 is to clean install onto a new drive and try getting stuff back from your backup. Personally I always prefer getting data restored from the live system rather than a backup, but if you have a backup you may end up needing it. As to what size of drive. You may not need one, and if you do need one nobody can say whether your existing drive is fully recoverable (maybe it has a fault). I've always got spare drives around so if it was me I'd get things up and running on an older drive and then think about final setup once I knew my data was safe!
yeah, i think im just going to get a second drive the same size as my current one ive already backed up all of my saved info (the files that i made) but i still have no way of saving my program keys ill do a new install on another drive and then port all of my keys over that way before i do that ill try to use one of the backups that ive done thanks guys the wealth of info has been fantastic!!!
a couple of days ago yes the more i use windows the more i despise it! im afraid im turning into a Mac Fanboy if only i knew how to write drivers for Linux
There are programs out there that will let you know what your product keys are. Just search on google. Deff there for office 2010 and should be there for vista, but not sure for Octane. I've reinstalled windows 7 on a computer and didnt know which of the 3 keys belonged to that computer. Using the software gave me the right key. If you need to gain access to the drive before you do anything a Linux Live CD is a fabulous tool.
