Vista sp1 won't load. drive won't restore

crawdoogie

Hmm. Optical drive works, just not with the system restore CD. yeah skip the driver uninstall for now.

System file checker
Verification 98% complete. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files unable to fix some of them.

Is there more to the above message?

Anyway see if you have this log file

C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

if you do open it a copy and paste it here.
-----------------------------------------
Make sure the BIOS is selecting an optical drive as the first boot device.
Then try reboot with repair CD in the drive

sv9779

When I try to go to the log at "C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log"
It comes back "access denide"

I should also mention that the hard drive has a partition that holds the same back up files as the recovery discs. It won't load from there either.

crawdoogie

Googling "Verification 98% complete. Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files unable to fix some of them." shows that many Vista users have had this problem which in a sense is good because it makes it easier to find a solution.
Go to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

In the RESOLUTION section you have already run sfc /scannow so move to the next section and go from there.

It seems that your problem is that your account on your Vista system doesn't have permission to access files that have been corrupted. The corrupted files in your case are most likely the ones used for Windows update and System Restore and maybe others.This fix finds the files that SFC cannot fix, has your take ownership of them so that you can replace them.
See if this fix works. If you have any problems post back.

sv9779

thanks for the help, I'll give it a try

sv9779

Can't seem to get the Sfcdetails.txt file to come up in the viewer. I guess the good news is that if it's a corrupted file, reformatting on my other computer should get me back to a good drive. The SATA to USB adapter I ordered should arrive in a few days. I'll keep you all posted.
Thanks for all the help

crawdoogie

If you reformat the drive in another PC you may lose your HP repair partition and its possible that the drive won't work with HP's OEM version of Windows Vista. It would be better to have a retail copy of Vista if you plan to go this route. So before you go that route :

-Try uninstalling Service Pack 1

-Did you check in the BIOS that the optical drive (DVD/CD-R or whatever) is set to boot before the hard disk? If this is not set then the PC looks to the hard drive first, It must be set to boot from the CD drive! Then try to restore for the CD as follows:

1. Open the disk tray and shut off PC.
2. With PC off load restore CD , close the tray, then power up the PC.


HP system restore stuff here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/f...ame=c00809678#

crawdoogie

Look for the Sfcdetails.txt in the Window root folder which usually is C:\
or use Windows search tool to find it. It should open with notepad.

Another way to read the cbs.log file is to simply copy/paste it into another folder like My Documents. The copy will have no restrictions to open. You may have to click the Continue button to provide administrator permission to copy after the Paste command.
The cbs.log file may be huge though (like 20-30 Mb)

sv9779

Well I did a search for Sfcdetails.txt and found it. I tried to open it in wordpad but nothing came up just the wordpad with a blinking curser.

crawdoogie

Answer this please...

Have you checked the boot order in the BIOS? It must be set so that the optical drive is first.

sv9779

Yep it is... When I subbed in an old ATA drive the discs worked fine. The restore menu comes right up and ready to go.
I just found an old 60 gig ATA drive. Think I'll take out the SATA and try loading up the ATA as the master and see how it does. Just have to find the time to play with it.

crawdoogie

Just trying to figure out why the Recovery CD/drive won't boot with the SATA drive but will with an old ATA one and want to make sure not to have overlooked anything.

Vista is a lot tighter with security/permissions. For some reason the programs that are not working on your PC (windows update. SFC, System Restore)are being denied access to the files needed for them to function.

I'm assuming that you have tried using HP's Recovery Manager which is accessed by clicking Start > All Programs > PC Help & Tools > Recovery Manager.

Take a look at this page also and run through HP's steps on doing a clean install of Vista if you haven't before.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...ame=c00814731#

also what model is your HP PC?

sv9779

Model is an HP Pavillion A6030n. When I called HP tech support we went through that recovery method. When that didn't work they said I needed to buy the restore discs. So I did. When those didn't work they sent me another set just in case those were bad. Niether set works. It would be nice to get it going without reformatting, but sometimes I think it's just better to start over.

sv9779

Just an update for all those trying to help. I took out the SATA hard drive and put in an old ATA hard drive. I inserted my restore discs and it worked ok. ( to a degree) It reformated the drive. Copied all the Windows files and other factory programs to the drive. But when it tried to reboot it was unable to boot from the drive. I tried checking the bios to make sure it was booting from the correct drive and that seems ok. Maybe you can't have a "C" drive on the ATA bus in a SATA computer???? Soooooo I put the SATA drive back in and added a RAID controler so I could add another ATA drive and I started backing up all my info from the SATA drive to an ATA drive. I havn't tried to reformat the SATA yet on my other computer. I want to have another SATA drive ready to go in case It won't work after I format it. Can't help but think there might be a problem with the drive and if I erase it all I'll have is an empty drive that I can't restore.
I'll keep you updated on progrees.
Thanks to everyone for all your help.

crawdoogie

Hi again sv

You don't need RAID drivers to run multiple SATA drives as single drives. You only need the RAID drivers when you run the drives in a RAID array. You do need SATA drivers though.

The HP recovery disks can not do a full install, they can only repair or restore the Vista software that came pre-installed by HP. This is probably why the ATA drive won't work using the HP recovery disk and also why you shouldn't reformat the SATA drive that has Vista installed on it by HP.

The following website has info about creating a recovery disk that may allow you to access the OEM recovery partition on your SATA drive.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/14...very-disc.html

Or if you can get your hands on a copy of a full retail Vista DVD (friend maybe?) try using it to repair your system files.

DangerMouse

sounds to me like bad sectors on that drive, windblows won't install on it if so. or there are truncated/crosslinked files. get new HDD and try again. there are HDD tools that MAY restore the drive, but it's hit or miss with them.

DM

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