Vista Repair Fail...

[crazylegs]

Hi all, i recently (just before Xmas) reinstall a friends Vista computer, its a SFF HP Pavilion.

All was looking fine for a month or so, now its come up with a boot error, getting stuck in the dreaded cycle of trying to load into windows, failing, promting various logon options... all of which fail and result in a restart.

Said i'd try to rapair it for him (being far more IT technical although i'm more of a hardware OCer than anythign special with software). Anyway the repair fails with the following report:

Problem Signature 1) External Media
Problem Signature 2) 6.0.6001.18000.6.06001.18000
Problem Signature 3) 3
Problem Signature 4) 131074
Problem Signature 5) Corrupt Registry
Problem Signature 6) Corrupt Registry
Problem Signature 7) 3221225804
Problem Signature 8) 3
Problem Signature 9) Rollback Registry
Problem Signature 10) 0

OS version = 6.0.6001.2.1.0.256
Locale ID = 1033


I've tried Googling fopr help but have not found anything particuarly helpful, apart from ppl suggesting a full reinstall...

Was able to access the command prompt and have just started a chkdsk /r (was suggested somewhere...

Not sure if this is the correct forum to be posting in, but have always found Anandtech useful for other problems.

Thanks in advance for any help ppl may have to offer!

 

[JackMDS]

Unlike on TV, in real life there No magic, sometime there is No other choice but to Reinstall.

If there is No good registry active, or in backup, you have to Re-install.

 

[RebateMonger]

Anybody know what the first line, "Problem Signature 1) External Media" means? Does that mean the Repair is being done using a boot DVD? Or something else?

Also, was there nothing else reported after your last line, "Locale ID = 1033"? These repair logs often have additional diagnosis information after that line.

Did you run more than a single "Repair"? MS says you may have to run the repair several times to get everything working. Not that I've ever seen a Vista Repair actually fix things....unfortunately.

Anyway, as JackMDS notes, if the Registry is corrupted and no good copy or backup could be located, a re-install is likely in your future.

 

[Blazer]

what causes a corrupt registry ? most likely hardware related, run memtest and harddrive extended test could find the source, installation source could be a problem also.

 

[crazylegs]

Thanks for the quick replies all.

@ JackMDS... i am fully aware fo the possibility of having to do a full reinstall, think i mentioned that. I was just lookign to see if there is somethign i could try in advance of that.

@ RebateMonger... 'external media' i think is because i was runnign the repair from my Microsoft Vista home Premium 32bit CD (yes official). Have tried a couple of times... same outcome. I'm home now and from my recolection i copied down all the log info above.

@ Blazer... The HD is new (well was replaced when i did the reinstall 1month ago) its a 500gb WD Caviar Blue, both that and the RAM pass the HP diagnostics. I'll try memtest myself.. but i think the registry has been corrupted by a bad update or something.

Worst comes to the worst i can install a new copy, but keep old data in the Windows.old folder the way vista does, whole reason for my post was to see if there was an 'easy' way to fix the problem without going down that route