My brother has an Advent laptop with Windows Vista. Last night it refused to boot, getting just past the "Windows loading" splash screen, flashing a BSOD on screen then quickly rebooting to do the same thing again. It gave you the option of booting into the recovery mode which we tried. It runs incredibly slowly though. Checkdisk returns lots of files/blocks unreadable. The automatic startup problem repair (IIRC) option didn't even find the Windows install on the drive. Then tried the re-install option. This got past the "prepping hard drive" stage then gave a read error during install :| We have no install or recovery discs of any kind so this is from a recovery partition. I managed to use a Linux recovery cd to pull his data files off the drive, there were a few read errors on those files too. Don't know if the filesystem is corrupt or the drive itself is broken. So, I've found this boot disc which should get me back in the recovery environment. Not quite sure what to try once in there. If the recovery partition or the drive itself is toast then where do we get Vista from? Why can't it be easy like Linux
It looks like your harddrive is broken/damaged (or the HDD controller, but most unlikely.. as it's not mechanical.. but it could occur). It looks like it needs to be replaced.
Agreed - sounds very much like a mechanical failure to me. If it's still under warranty, send it in. If not... well, you'll need a new hard drive, for one, but even then, that system recovery disc you have linked won't help you. You'll need either a true recovery disc or a full copy of Vista. And as much as I don't advocate piracy... well, you've legally bought a copy of it already, and you shouldn't have to do so again because of mechanical HDD failure and a lazy system OEM. - Diosjenin -
Drive sounds like it's gone. Warranty it, or buy a new one. See if you can get any free bootdisc cloning software, bring it across with CRC errors, then run checkdisk. Unlikely, but the booting into Vista then quickly BSODing thing could be a RAM issue. Although the failed reinstall of Windows probably points to hard drive. Off-topic: BjD, your avatar is amazing
As he needs the laptop I popped XP on there for him. Installed and works fine but checkdisc doesn't work Laptop is just out of warranty too. Couldn't come at a worse time as he's just lost his job and then this happens, can't really afford to replace the drive. As it seems to work now we're going to leave the drive for now. OT: thanks pimonserry, John Rhodes doing what he does best!
Make sure he backs up important info somewhere else - sounds like the drive is on its way out. Wouldn't want to lose any important info.
