Hi geeks,

Having a major issue with my laptop. I am unable to boot into my Vista installation.I am currently posting this through my Fedora 11 installation which I had already. If anyone is interested, the BSOD error is:

0x0000007B (0x80399BB0, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

As far as I know, a '7B' BSOD is usually a hard disk error but I am 100% sure the HDD is fine as I can read and write from both Fedora and Knoppix without issue.

Steps taken so far:

Obviously, I have tried the usual steps of trying to start windows in safe mode, last good config, and all of the F8 options. When they failed, I used fedora to check for some solutions online (Mostly useless answers from MS) and I found one successful case when a person flashed his BIOS back to an earlier time. Unfortunately, I cant get the BIOS update I got from the Dell website to boot from a USB drive (Says invalid boot disc - the BIOS on it is in the .exe format which I can't use in linux) and I do not have a floppy drive on the laptop.

So, I put in my Dell drivers and utilities CD hoping that it would give me some option to update (Or roll back) the BIOS but there was no such option. However, it did give me a load of diagnostic options including repair options by symptom so went with the "Unable to boot from BIOS". Unfortunately, that didnt help me at all.

So, I got my Vista installation disc (OEM supplied) and managed to get to the repair menu (Which I had among my F8 options anyway) but this also has the option to reinstall. Unfortunately, it states that "Upgrade is unavailable" and that a clean install is the only thing I can select (At the expense of my files and settings).

As for the repair options, the automatic recovery doesn't seem to find any errors, asks to reset and see if all is well (It isn't). For some reason, system restore doesn't detect any restore points. There are no windows memory errors detected and I have no backups. So, i'm left with a command prompt that, by default, is asking for a file in this folder:

X:/WINDOWS/System32/

I have no idea where it is getting the X: drive from - I have C and D drives for windows only. As per another online guide, I tried:

bootrec.exe /fixboot

with no success (Although it stated the operation was successful). So, I got back to commant prompt and tried:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

which also didn't work (again, it things all is well now) and, as a final insult, I could no longer boot into Fedora as the new (Supposedly working) windows MBR didn't even want to know about Fedora. Eventually got back Fedora after repairing GRUB boot loader through Knoppix I then used:

bootrec.exe /scanos

which doesn't seem to find ANY windows installations (!). I also gave rebuildBcd a go with no practical success. I cant figure it out at all. I have not put in any new hardware or anything. What might interest you is how this all came about. I was installing some of the malware detection methods on this G2G site:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Malwa...ide-t2852.html

I managed to get malwarebytes, ERUNT and GMER downloaded and put the download into a new folder on the desktop. Nothing was installed or run - Just downloaded and moved the installation packages. It's only when I went to get OTL - my computer grinded to a halt after about 21% was downloaded. I happened to have task manager open and it didn't show any spikes in usage or anything. A few minutes later, everything crashed and I had no option but to power off the ugly way.

I cant believe this has happened the week I start my (100% online) BSc Degree courses. Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to recover my existing installation? To be fair, I DO have the means to back up my data through this boot disc and my TB USB hard drive but I dont want to lose my FF settings as I have most my passwords, links etc... saved and I dont want to have to spend several hours finding and reinstalling everything. I also gave chkdsk a go within the command prompt at Vista recovery and no luck. Any help would be massively appreciated.

Regards
Noobsaibot21

FYI: I have posted this at geekstogo.com but i'm hoping that I can get more detailed, linux-specific help here as I have the feeling my repair options are limited to Linux. I have used Knoppix before to fix an unmountable boot volume with XP before but I think this issue is different with Vista.

http://www.retosphere.de/tipsandtric...24&#references

On a seperate note, I will be getting rid of Fedora and getting Ubuntu or something as I cant do much in Fedora (Cant even get adobe flash or "Open containing folder" working with firefox). Unfortunately, the aforementioned BSc course (Cisco CCNA) is 100% online and must be done in Windows.

Why not run the factory diags for that drive make? If not then get UBCD 4 or 5 and try the generic tools.

Booting to Vista DVD and let it try to repair the install gives you the X:/WINDOWS/System32/. MS doesn't want you to access the drive so it doesn't mount C: in the repair tools. What you see is an actual MS PE 2.0 live environment. It is the small wim file on the dvd.


Use a VistaPE or Windows 7 PE to use system restore point maybe.

Get your data off with a live cd like mint or fedora or whatever works to usb flash or external drive and then do a system restore from OEM media.

I would have never flashed the bios.


Your OEM may have a way to save the entire install when it uses it's recovery software. Might be a F key at boot and then a choice to save personal data.

Cheers, I will give that a go and see how I get on. I will keep you posted,

Noobsaibot21

Hi,

Used the UBCD and scanned the HDD with Viva which gave no errors. Viva didn't give me any specific partitions options, just three hard drives. One was 305Gb which is the main HDD - Both Vista and Fedora are on this. It also showed two HDD's with 0Gb each. Attempted to scan but ended immediately with no error messages - strange!

I guess i'll just reinstall Windows - this wouldn't affect the partition for Fedora would it? Also, do you know of any Linux which is a bit more user friendly than Fedora 11? Ideally one which will allow me to view sites like youtube and also one where the 'Open containing folder' in the Firefox download window to work. I've heard good things about Ubuntu but what do you think?

in your BIOS switch your hard drive options from AHCI to IDE and the BSOD should go away.

I'm not a windows user but, I don't think the above literally means "X" partition, it's more like a placeholder. If your CD/DVD drive is seen as "D" on windows, just put "D" in place of x.

Have you tried using EasyBCD to repair the vista bootloader? Free download and works well, simple too.

Hi, gave that a go. My BIOS only let's me switch between ATA and ACHI which I tried but still no luck.


EasyBCD - Would that (or something similar) not be on the ultimate boot cd already? And would that have any affect on my Fedora boot? I ask as I dont want to lose my Fedora only for it not to work.

I did a full hard drive check with my Dell diagnostics DVD (Surprisingly thorough for a Dell disc) and there is absolutely ZERO errors with the HDD. It also let me check the BIOS which seemed okay. Another thing I tried was to save the BIOS.exe file which I got from Dell onto my USB pen and attempted to run it through the Windows Vista DVD command prompt. Weirdly, I kept getting a prompt to have my laptop battery and AC Adaptor plugged in (They both were) before proceeding and it wouldn't let me go ahead. Super strange. I am currently backing up the C:\ drive onto a 1Tb HDD so at least I can restore most of my settings.

Normally I enjoy annoying challenges like this but with my CCNA course starting tomorrow, I dont really have the time to keep playing against Vista

Here is the Microsoft page on the BSoD error Code 0x0000007B
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

In Other words run a chkdsk /r on the drive to repair the boot sector.

Here is a good article from Gateway on troubleshooting this error code. It also mentions that there will be additional information like INACCESSABLE_BOOT_DEVICE, IRQ_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL, etc. It also provides a solution to each one. I recommend giving it ago, and keep that OEM Disc handy so you can get back to the recovery console.
http://support.gateway.com/s/Checkli...70928123.shtml

Hello again,

I had a look at that gateway site but still nothing. Bravely, I gave up and reinstalled. Thank god for the dual boot and Knoppix or i'd have lost everything. Managed to save my firefox passwords and everything. Handilly (by MS standards), Vista saved everything anyway under windows.old

It's just a matter of going through everything and reinstalling selected things. As for my second OS, what do you believe to be the best Linux distribution? I got Fedora 11 but rarely use it as there are too many things for me to get up and running and my linux is limited at the moment. As I was saying earlier, I've heard great things about Ubuntu - would anyone recommend it over all others?