Vista Home Basic Recovery

[DMHReaper72]

Hello all,

I have a Medion Pink Notebook which is refusing to boot into Vista and will not even reach the point from which I can get to safe mode

There is a problem with the boot sector on the HDD which cannot be auto repaired.

A disk that came with the machine is supposed to cover all eventualities but will not install windows over the top of the current installation.

As far as I can see Im left with only one option. I can access a dos prompt and I know which drive/partition the recovery image is on.

Is there anyway I can kick off this process from DOS?

Many Thanks

[awaj]

if there is a repair partition, you need to hit a key combination while booting up. My acer laptop had the combination of alt and F10. I would call tech support for your laptop and ask them how to initiate the restore partition. You will loose all data that you have on the drive as it will "reset" to factory standards

[DMHReaper72]

Found the recovery partition no problem, difficulty is coming from the fact I cannot get into windows to access the normal route of recovery

I want the thing set back to factory state so I can start from scratch.

Am getting this before I am presented with the option for safe mode

File: Windows\system32\winload.exe
Status: OxcOOOOOOf
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt

:(

[awaj]

when you boot, starting from when you boot, you need to hit a certain key combination. It's different for every computer though, I don't know what your computer's combo is, Tech support will beable to give you the combination with out any problem, and it will reset your computer to factory standards

[Paul Komski]

Am getting this before I am presented with the option for safe mode

File: Windows\system32\winload.exe
Status: OxcOOOOOOf
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt
The F8 mode options should appear before any such messages from Windows. Are you tapping the F8 key repeatedly from a cold boot?

Maybe you could email Medion Support (http://www.medion.co.uk/) but the other approach would be to boot to an installation Vista DVD and select the repair options from there or else attempt a parallel installation of Windows (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/b19dd528-867f-4f55-afdd-65bb7b9f67a5).

[awaj]

Paul, if there is a restore partition on the computer, why not boot to the partition (not involving windows) and go back to factory standards?

[Paul Komski]

Paul, if there is a restore partition on the computer, why not boot to the partition (not involving windows) and go back to factory standards?Restore partitions themselves are generally not bootable in their own right and must be accessed by other software than runs (a) from within Windows itself or (b) from a recovery boot floppy/CD/DVD or (c) from a specific hotkey (as was suggested) pressed during start-up. Not all laptops with a recovery partition can use method (c) - hence the suggestion of contacting Medion support.

When such partitions cannot be accessed as described for whatever reason or when installing a brand new hard drive there have to be other methods of installing the OS.

PS Also to restate that the option to try Safe Mode should present itself using F8 before that message appears. The same message might also appear after choosing the Safe Mode option but that is another matter.

[DMHReaper72]

I cannot access the safe mode options via F8 as the machine does not even get that far before I am presented with the error message :(

If I use the recovery disc that was supplied with the machine I can get a command prompt up, the repair option cannot auto fix anything and reinstall option simply freezes

[Paul Komski]

If you are trying F8 and not getting the options then maybe your keyboard is not being detected. Is it PS/2 or USB? Those messages would only occur after the Safe Mode Prompts so what is happening is that the F8 key press is not being detected or not being acted-on. See if you can get into the BIOS setup with a key press.

Since you can boot to a CD but it not then work smells like a failing HDD or one with bad sectors in critical areas. You can usually test that out with the HDD maker's diagnostic utillity from their website.