Fatal System Error

[yhibiki]

Question/Problem: Fatal System Error, Blue Screen of Doom, etc. Won't boot up Vista anymore.

Operating System, Version and Service Pack: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit, pretty sure it's SP2 but have no way of checking right now.

Web Browser and Version: Firefox 3.something.

Your level of experience: Beginner to Intermediate?

When did the

Comments

[damion_c]

boot to the windows CD, open the command prompt and type chkdsk /r. This could take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, given your situation I would expect the latter.

Ubuntu is running because it's running directly from CD not from your hard drive.
Ubuntu is telling you it can't mount the hard drive, it can't read NTFS, which means either your file system is damaged, or likely since it can't mount, your hard drive needs to be replaced.

if chkdsk doesn't work you will likely need to replace the hard drive.

If you are not sure how to run chkdsk let me know.

[yhibiki]

Not sure how to run chkdsk; additionally, I literally cannot boot to the Windows CD. I can try it with XP instead of Vista, but with both Vista boots I tried, I just got a black screen with a white mouse and nothing else. I let it sit for at least an hour too, so it didn't seem like it was just being really slow at loading?

But yeah, all signs point to bad hard drive. :'(

I'd be happy just getting to save all of my data somehow.

[damion_c]

There are a couple of ways of saving your data if it's the file system, if it's the hard drive failing then it can get really expensive. Try the chkdsk, if that works great, if not put the hard drive in as a slave on another system, or you can try doing a parallel install, but that would be the most dangerous as well.

Did you test the CD's before you had the problems with your computer? It's possible the CD's might not have worked regardless, especially if you downloaded them from the internet.

If you have an XP CD try that, boot to the CD, press R for the repair console at the menu, log in, and then type chkdsk /r

Let me know how that works, or if you need more help

[yhibiki]

XP gets all the way to "setup is starting Windows" and then I get another blue screen. "Stop: 0x0000007B."

My sister will hopefully bring by a legit version of Vista later, but I'm starting to doubt that it'll help.

Aaand I have no idea how to set up a slave drive.

[fried_eggz]

So from what I read/remember, do NOT run a defrag or chkdsk from Ubuntu. Doing that in a Linux system without express knowledge of what you are doing could seriously make the problem irreparable.

It is in fact a problem with a winlogon file, so short of accessing it and fixing it with DOS, Windows is SOL. The best thing that I can find is this. Short version:

Try booting of of an Ubuntu Live CD and copying the data to an external hard drive. Download Ubuntu Linux from ubuntu.com, and burn the iso disk image to a CD. Boot of the CD and you should be able to run Ubuntu off of it (without installing it). Just copy the data on the drive to an external HDD, and you should be good.

Since I'm assuming you're currently running Ubuntu off a partition, I don't know if it can access your files on Windows that way.

[yhibiki]

I'm actually running Ubuntu off of a CD, and I can't access my files at all -- that's the error I get up there.

I'm ripping my hair out here. ;_; This computer is only a year old! I was much nicer to it than to my last laptop. ;_;

[damion_c]

"XP gets all the way to "setup is starting Windows" and then I get another blue screen. "Stop: 0x0000007B."

7b is inaccessible boot device. 90% of the time that I have seen this it means your hard drive is shot. A slave drive is not difficult in the least, more often then not just simply connecting it will cause the computer to auto detect it. First thing first, is this a notebook or a desktop? Desktop is quite simple, remove the cables, remove the drive, on the top of the drive is should show a Diagram with the jumper settings, the jumper pins should be next to the power and the data.

[yhibiki]

It's a notebook, unfortunately. :( I do have a desktop in the house that I could theoretically hook it up to.

I guess with a shot harddrive there's no way to fix the laptop itself either? It was a fairly big investment for me, and it's only a year old. Y'know, just old enough to be out of warranty.