HELP - Vista Boot Problem

[jhabawak]

Hi all,

I had a blue screen 2 days ago. After reboot I cannot access my account.

It appears that all user accounts have been deleted!

I have tried to use the Vista Recovery CD to no avail:

Memory Test is ok.
I have Repaired the Os to a previous back up but the problem persists.

I also have tried to change the access password using Pc Login Now but is says there are no accounts!

I have been able to access the pc with FalconFour ultimate boot... but once I'm inside I don't know what to do! (the boot CD creates a working partition in the ram on which it run XP)


Any suggestions?

 

[jhabawak]

anyone??

 

[davexnet]

See if you can access the PC in safemode.
If you can get in, you may be able to verify a few things.

 

[jhabawak]

See if you can access the PC in safemode.
If you can get in, you may be able to verify a few things.

Thank you for your imput.

That is another strange thing. When I boot there is no safemode option.

Either I boot from the main Os hd, in which case it goes directly to the Vista user log in or I boot from CD in which case I can use both the Vista recovery or the Ultimate Boot cd.

Pressing f12 only lets me change the boot order.
Pressing f2 gets me into the bios... but I can only change the boot order.
Pressing f8 gives me a black DOS screen or just nothing happens.


If you want me to access the pc the only thing I can do is to boot from Falcon Four Ultimate boot cd, that gives me access to the HD contents via a little XP working partition...

 

[Steltek]

What type of Vista install media are you working with, i.e. OEM or Retail? 32 bit or 64 bit? Have you tried rolling back to prior system restore point (a point created prior to your glitch, maybe a few points prior even) using the Recovery CD? If your recovery CD is OEM and won't allow you to roll back to a prior system restore point, you can download the appropriate ISO via bittorrent from this page and see if the resulting bootable recovery disc will allow you to roll back to a prior system restore point (they charge for the direct download, but the bittorrent download ought to still be free):

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

If you have a retail Vista install CD, have you tried to do a repair install (i.e. installing Vista over the top of the existing borked Vista install)?

I vaguely recall reading that it is possible to delete access to a user profile simply by deleting certain keys from the registry. It sounds as if your glitch might have deleted all of the registry keys related to profiles from your machine. However, I'd think that (absent the registry being totally corrupted to the point where it can't be updated) rolling back to a prior system restore point ought to resolve that particular issue if that were the case unless the registry is totally and irretrievably nuked.

Since you can access the drive via your boot CD, I vote that the simplest solution would be simply to back up your personal files to an external drive, wipe the hard drive, and reinstall Vista. Even if you could get it working again, I don't know that you would ever be able to trust that particular Vista install to ever be truly stable again.

 

[Lanyap]

Vista sucks. Could be your hard drive going bad. Is this a Dell? I've seen some weird stuff with Vista on some Dell models.

 

[jhabawak]

What type of Vista install media are you working with, i.e. OEM or Retail? 32 bit or 64 bit? Have you tried rolling back to prior system restore point (a point created prior to your glitch, maybe a few points prior even) using the Recovery CD? If your recovery CD is OEM and won't allow you to roll back to a prior system restore point, you can download the appropriate ISO via bittorrent from this page and see if the resulting bootable recovery disc will allow you to roll back to a prior system restore point (they charge for the direct download, but the bittorrent download ought to still be free):

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

If you have a retail Vista install CD, have you tried to do a repair install (i.e. installing Vista over the top of the existing borked Vista install)?

I vaguely recall reading that it is possible to delete access to a user profile simply by deleting certain keys from the registry. It sounds as if your glitch might have deleted all of the registry keys related to profiles from your machine. However, I'd think that (absent the registry being totally corrupted to the point where it can't be updated) rolling back to a prior system restore point ought to resolve that particular issue if that were the case unless the registry is totally and irretrievably nuked.

Since you can access the drive via your boot CD, I vote that the simplest solution would be simply to back up your personal files to an external drive, wipe the hard drive, and reinstall Vista. Even if you could get it working again, I don't know that you would ever be able to trust that particular Vista install to ever be truly stable again.

Thank you very much for your help!

I have tried already to restore to 4 different points without success.
It is Vista 32 bit and I do not have the install CD.

Your guess at the problem seems more than accurate to me and it appears there is no other solution than to nuke the OS drive and perform a reinstall.
I might just go ahead and salvage what I can as you suggest.

I hate Vista in general and it's an old laptop that I intended to replace with a new desktop in February anyway. I don't think I can be bothered to spend any more time on it other than getting my music out of it.

Thank you again for your suggestions!

 

[jhabawak]

Vista sucks. Could be your hard drive going bad. Is this a Dell? I've seen some weird stuff with Vista on some Dell models.

Agree with you on that.. Vista is just plain bad.

It is an Acer Aspire 7720g from 2007 so I guess it ran its course the poor old bastard!!

On the bright side this means I can now treat myself with a new desktop system! And Sandy Bridge looks very tempting!

 

[Steltek]

Agree with you on that.. Vista is just plain bad.

It is an Acer Aspire 7720g from 2007 so I guess it ran its course the poor old bastard!!

On the bright side this means I can now treat myself with a new desktop system! And Sandy Bridge looks very tempting!

You can probably get a recovery DVD from Acer for the laptop fairly cheap. Also, if the laptop has a valid COA with a readable keycode, you can probably even use a retail Vista DVD to reinstall (though you might have to install in trial mode and then call Microsoft to activate, but no big deal otherwise).

However, if it were me and the hardware still checks out as being OK, I'd just take great pleasure in nuking Vista and drop Ubuntu (or your other favorite Linux distro of choice) on it.