43 replies to this topic

[prairiedogsplatr]

Is it possible to fix a non booting vista basic with a vista ultimate cd?

[mudmanc4]

Not knowing why it wont boot, it's hard to say, if you have any information as to what went wrong, I'm sure there's several people on here that are using vista, and will be glad to help you.

[prairiedogsplatr]

Well the person said that the it was not reading the OS.
That was the message she saw i never saw.
I received it and the screen would not even turn on.
I messed with it for about an hour and somehow i got the screen to turn on, but i am not getting the message she got.
I can get it to the screen thats black with the green bar at the bottom and the bar freezes after going across a few times.
Try to boot into safe mode and it freezes before it gets there.
Was thinking try a restore or a fix with the ultimate disc but not sure if that will work on vista basic.


its a gateway ML3109 laptop

[prairiedogsplatr]

also did a motherboard tester on it and throws no codes.

[prairiedogsplatr]

after more tests on it i decided to try an xp cd in it jsut to see if it would boot off of it. froze when it says setup is starting windows.

[zalternate]

I suppose you have pulled out the memory sticks and either tried with a new one(known to be good).  Or maybe one stick is bad, in a pair.

[mudmanc4]

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I suppose you have pulled out the memory sticks and either tried with a new one(known to be good).  Or maybe one stick is bad, in a pair.

good thinking.

It could also be something like a nasty virus .

You could insert the install disk, then shut the machine down, all the way not a restart. Then boot to the disk, when it asks you to use the recovery consol, press "R" , you'll be at the "C:/ " prompt, type "fixdsk " . The system should check for errors. You may also want to run "chkdsk" this way.

[RyanS]

if its software wise, not memory or anything it sounds like your master boot record... if not a virus or anything else mentioned above. and i agree with mudman, the recovery console should fix the boot files

[mudmanc4]

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if its software wise, not memory or anything it sounds like your master boot record... if not a virus or anything else mentioned above. and i agree with mudman, the recovery console should fix the boot files

Yes, but if you arent certain it's the MBR, and you run "fixmbr" your done !

[RyanS]

true. lol i wasnt implying to go into recovery console and fixmbr right away. that would be bad.

[prairiedogsplatr]

Tryed ram seems good to me.
Trying to boot from vista cd...  freezes with green bar at the bottom as well after it loads the files.

I am noticing that the hot air coming out of the pc is very warm for it only being on for 1-2 min at a time.
I am begining to wonder maybe just maybe if the cpu is getting too hot and needs new thermal paste.

as for recovery console i would love to try it if i could just get to it

[RyanS]

dotn try recovery console unless you know you have to. as mudman pointed out, if you fix anything in recovery console, especially the mbr, chances are if you dont need it then you'll be at a loss.  can you go into your bios before the bootup even begins and check ur temps?

[prairiedogsplatr]

I can get into the bios before boot but I do not think this bios has info on temp its a very plain crapo bios

[RyanS]

can you tell what bios version you have?

[prairiedogsplatr]

PhoenixBIOS

BIOS Version: 83.09
KBC Version: 6810

[prairiedogsplatr]

hmmm

Left it in bios and it froze after a few min.
Maken me think its a chipset or the cpu getting too hot.

[Le_Murphant]

I believe that every disc of vista has every version of the OS on it, so you should be able to recover with the ultimate disc as much as with a basic disc. Also, the fact that there is a lot of hot air comming out does not mean that the thermal paste is bad, the amount will be the same if the paste is good since anyways the cpu produces a fixed amount of heat and it all comes out by the same hole.

[mudmanc4]

Quote

Tryed ram seems good to me.
Trying to boot from vista cd...  freezes with green bar at the bottom as well after it loads the files.

I am noticing that the hot air coming out of the pc is very warm for it only being on for 1-2 min at a time.
I am begining to wonder maybe just maybe if the cpu is getting too hot and needs new thermal paste.

as for recovery console i would love to try it if i could just get to it

  You cant boot from a cd ?  So your telling me that when you place the installation disk in, shut the computer down completely , then start it up, then when it say "press any key to boot from cd.........."  you can't?  what happens then ?  Because this would signify it isn't a software issue, it is a hardware issue, and I havent heard you say anything like that , other then the heat.

Ypu can run some things in the recovery console with out doing any damage, thats why I suggested running "chkdsk" . What this does is look for nasty errors on the unmounted dev0 .

Now the reason not to run "fixmbr" is because the mbr is located at cylinder 0, head 0, and sector 1 / dev0 , and if this has not been damaged, and it's re wriiten, then when the machine boots, and bios points to dev0 cylo, head0, sector1 on dev0 , and it has no place to point to because it was reset, and because it holds the partition tables on a partitioned device, the system halts because it knows not where to look to boot the active partition.

Anyhow, if in fact you even have bad sectors , file structure is yet to be seen. Even a boot sector virus is yet to be seen.

  would be more apt to think as zalternate said memory, or a virus that is loaded during boot, into the memory , that starts running in the memory causing an overflow, and crappin out the rest of the boot process.

Why don't you goto the ultimate boot cd site, and download it, burn it, then ask here, coknuck for one uses it, I dunno who else does, but people have good things to say about it. It's chock full of utilities .

[zalternate]

Just a couple of more thoughts........

clearing CMOS memory
http://www.pcguide.c...learCMOS-c.html
Read the warnings on doing this as well.

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I need to clear the CMOS memory (due to a corrupted BIOS, lost password or other problem) but do not know how to do this
Explanation: You need to clear the CMOS memory but aren't sure how to do this. It is sometimes necessary to clear the CMOS due to a lost BIOS password, corruption of the CMOS memory, or because you set the BIOS settings to values incompatible with your hardware and now you cannot boot the PC far enough to get into the settings and reset them (this rarely happens, fortunately).

Otherwise, maybe the power supply can not support a booting of the OS load. It manages to get into the Bios, but the power supply will wink out in a few moments. 
Could plugging in to an external monitor and disabling the laptops monitor(if you can) allow for less power usage?

[prairiedogsplatr]

I try differant ram.
tryed differant power supply.

i am in process of downloading the ultimate boot disc will give that a shot but will take awhile to download.

the pc freezes when the little running bar on the bottom is runnin

another weird thing is that it wont post if i take out the ram i have to mess with it for awhile.
screen stays black no beep no anything.
Happened to me 3 times now when changing up parts but somehow i get it back to posting and having a image on screen.