Windows Vista BSOD Stop 0xf4

[Jephph]

I'm getting this error message on Vista Home Premium on an Asus G50v laptop. The computer will get through the Windows loading screen, and then go black for a few seconds, and then the blue screen pops up. Does the same with safe mode. The last changes the user remembers making was installing Windows Live Essentials.
I've read that this particular STOP message has been remedied by reseating the RAM, HD, or CMOS battery. I've tried reseating the RAM and HD, but would rather not take it apart to get to the CMOS battery if at all possible.
Other things tried:
*(within Vista Recovery console)
Startup Repair
chkdsk with /r and /f parameters.
sfc /scannow would return "Could not start the repair services." When I tried to run it in offline mode using sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=c:\windows it came up with "Could not perform the requested operation."
*Memtest86+ returned no errors after running for a full day.
*There were no system restore points, which is odd because I remember creating one last time I had this laptop just a few weeks ago.

 

[Motorheader]

You've pretty much eliminated the major culprits with what you have done so far and it doesn't sound like a hardware issue, it sounds more like a Windows registry issue.

I've run into this issue before - and since Vista/7 only allows for repair install from the desktop and not the DVD - thanks for nothing MS - you may find that you have to do things from a command prompt to resolve.

Booting from the Vista Installation DVD you can boot it to repair mode and command prompt. I was able to find multiple old versions of the system registry, (even though they were likely faulty) I made backup copies of the existing registry files, and copied over the most recent ones of the backups I was able to find. Again this was all done from the command prompt.

I'm doing this from memory so please excuse my vagueness for not providing the exact name of the files, but the backups are located in \Windows\System32\Config\Regback and there should be at least 4 or more of them. You can check the dates of the files by doing a Dir command, then you can copy the ones you want to the location of the working registry folder of \Windows\System32\Config. I put a C: in front of the \Windows... but it gave the damn smilies.

If you are not comfortable at the command prompt, in testing I was also able to do the same thing from a Linux SLAX CD by renaming, making folders and backups, and copying the files from the comfort of the GUI menu.