Vista won't boot

mrhaun03

My girlfriend forgot her password, so I tried using NT Password & Registry editor to reset it. Apparently, this tool doesn't work well with Vista. Since using it, the system will not boot. I have tried Safe Mode, Last Known Good, and Normal startup. It boots the Microsoft screen with the green bar scrolling across the bottom, and it never goes any further.

I also tried booting into Safe Mode, but it stops at a file called crcdisk??? Something like that. I've let it sit there for over 20 minutes. It will not boot from the DVD either. It loads the files and goes to the screen with the green scrolling bar, then the screen turns black and that's it.

Any ideas??? It's Vista Home Premium.

rfult001

Had this problem with my wifes laptop a while back and turns out the HDD was bad anyway.

Load the Vista disc, open the recovery console, first try bootrec /fixmbr and bootrec /fixboot, then reboot. If that doesn't fix it run chkdsk /r on the drive then reboot. If it is still giving you crap load the disc again to run the "repair vista" option. If it isn't working at that point: load a linux, recover your data, and don't look back.

mrhaun03

When I try to boot from the DVD, it goes to a black screen again. I can't even boot from cd.

rfult001

Missed that part.

Sounds like you have some other issues going on. I might just go with option #4, but then again, your issue could be hardware related. Try running memtest, then an HDD diagnostic utility and see what you get.

Jordus

If you cant even boot into PE (the dvd) it sounds like a bad stick of ram.

Lefanduch

Tell me if you can get back to Vista, i may have a Password removal tool to give you (i have to check).

I don't have anything to say, other people told you exactly what i wanted to say!

genXrcist

Remove the HDD and slave it using a USB -> EIDE or SATA adapter. If you can see the dir structure, remove all the data you want to recover and then Run Chkdsk /r on the slaved drive to see if you can't repair any bad clusters. After that I would set the folder options to view System hidden files and possibly replace your boot files.

Is the drive making any clicking sounds? The whole password thing could be coincidence.

Next time download and use a SAM password crack utility. There are a ton of em out there.

mrhaun03

I'm gonna hook the drive up to another computer and try to repair it. At least I hope I can get the files I need from it.

I don't think its RAM cause it did boot to the login screen before I used the password reset tool. I'll check that tho.

If you have any other ideas let me know. I'll post back after I connect the drive as a slave to another PC and let you know what I find.

vanquish23

Its Vista.....nuff said.

genXrcist

If the RAM was bad the PC would be beeping at you and you wouldn't boot at all, no BIOS splash screen, nothing. If RAM fails during POST then the PC doesn't do anything except beep.

undomiel

Not necessarily, a machine can POST but the memory will still be bad. Some symptoms would be random blue screens and/or reboots. In this case though I'm leaning more towards a failing hdd or controller. That can cause Vista (or any other version of Windows) to hang during disk checks. It still wouldn't hurt to run a memory check though to be on the safe side.

To vanquish23: not helpful, insert token, please play again.

rfult001

Forgot the Administrator's Password? - Windows Password Recovery - Windows Password Reset

For future reference, EBCD has always worked for me for removing passwords.

As far as the Vista disc hanging:

If you have dual channel ram, remove one of the sticks then try booting.

mrhaun03

I'm at work right now, but when I get home, I'll try these suggestions. I'll post back later tonight with the results.

Hopefully I won't be buying a new HDD.

Jordus

genXrcist wrote: »

If the RAM was bad the PC would be beeping at you and you wouldn't boot at all, no BIOS splash screen, nothing. If RAM fails during POST then the PC doesn't do anything except beep.

This isnt true at all.

Infact MOST RAM failures I have seen consist of the machine POSTing fine, and freezing most of the way through loading the OS or the first few programs after start up. (depends on which stick is bad).

Generally if Windows freezes when loading, and so does PE or a linux liveCD then its often bad ram.

mrhaun03

Found a solution!!!

It's a SATA hard drive. So I moved the SATA cable to a different port on the MOBO. Booted up and ran CHKDSK. Now, it boots fine.

I just gotta figure out what the damn password is now!

mrhaun03

Lefanduch wrote: »

Tell me if you can get back to Vista, i may have a Password removal tool to give you (i have to check).

I don't have anything to say, other people told you exactly what i wanted to say!

So have you found that tool?

jibbajabba

mrhaun03 wrote: »

So have you found that tool?

Password Recovery - Top 5 Free Windows Password Recovery Tools - Password Cracker

mrhaun03

Gomjaba wrote: »

Password Recovery - Top 5 Free Windows Password Recovery Tools - Password Cracker

I use the NT Password and registry editor and it allows me to change the password, but that's the issue I describes occurs. That's what started the the whole thing! But now I figured out how to get it to boot again...only thing is it ends up not saving the passwords. I don't understand it.

I was able to enable the administrator account, but I still am unable to login. This sucks....getting very frustrated.

rwwest7

www.password-changer.com is what I've been using on XP for years. Works great. Their web-site says it works with Vista also, though I haven't ran into a situation to test it on Vista.

KGhaleon

Lookup the windows accessibility hack for vista involving magnify or any of those apps on the logon page.

Then just add yourself as an admin

genXrcist

Jordus wrote: »

This isnt true at all.

Infact MOST RAM failures I have seen consist of the machine POSTing fine, and freezing most of the way through loading the OS or the first few programs after start up. (depends on which stick is bad).

Generally if Windows freezes when loading, and so does PE or a linux liveCD then its often bad ram.

I find it interesting that you dismiss my statement so flippantly and then proceed to add nothing more than your opinion based on your experiences. It's all well and good as I for one wouldn't presume to declare someone else as blatantly incorrect but in your case I almost made an exception.

MrHaun03, be careful with Free advice as you more often than not get what you pay for.

skrpune

genXrcist wrote: »

I find it interesting that you dismiss my statement so flippantly and then proceed to add nothing more than your opinion based on your experiences. It's all well and good as I for one wouldn't presume to declare someone else as blatantly incorrect but in your case I almost made an exception.

MrHaun03, be careful with Free advice as you more often than not get what you pay for.

I've got to agree with Jordus on this one - yes, bad RAM can result in beeping and no POST, but not always. More often, I've seen it show up in random failures or hangs. So depending on just how far gone the RAM is, the symptoms you'd see would be different.

genXrcist

My question then would be, how do you know it was RAM? Perhaps it was a defect on the Mobo which caused the RAM to become faulty? I'm not an expert on the inner workings of RAM, but I do know that if you have 0 RAM in a system you won't boot. Thus, when someone has bad RAM, it won't boot. Now one good stick of RAM and one stick that perhaps is the wrong type would boot, but you would see OS load errors as you're describing.

My contention is that that is more likely than what is being considered, 'bad ram'. When I say bad RAM, I mean, the module is faulty. Dead in the water so to speak. A module that is functional but perhaps the wrong type for the system, or a module that is being affected by a bad Mobo, that is what I think Jordus and you, skprune, are referring to.

Most people seem to use MemTest86 to determine if their RAM is bad but the reality is that even with a tool like MemTest86 it's difficult to determine if the RAM really is 'partially' bad. Take a look at the excerpt from memtest's web site:

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Please be aware that not all errors reported by Memtest86 are due to bad memory. The test implicitly tests the CPU, L1 and L2 caches as well as the motherboard. It is impossible for the test to determine what causes the failure to occur. However, most failures will be due to a problem with memory module. When it is not, the only option is to replace parts until the failure is corrected.

Once a memory error has been detected, determining the failing SIMM/DIMM module is not a clear cut procedure. With the large number of motherboard vendors and possible combinations of memory slots it would be difficult if not impossible to assemble complete information about how a particular error would map to a failing memory module. However, there are steps that may be taken to determine the failing module. Here are four techniques that you may wish to use:

Sometimes memory errors show up due to component incompatibility. A memory module may work fine in one system and not in another. This is not uncommon and is a source of confusion. In these situations the components are not necessarily bad but have marginal conditions that when combined with other components will cause errors.

Often the memory works in a different system or the vendor insists that it is good. In these cases the memory is not necessarily bad but is not able to operate reliably at Athlon speeds. Sometimes more conservative memory timings on the motherboard will correct these errors. In other cases the only option is to replace the memory with better quality, higher speed memory. Don't buy cheap memory and expect it to work with an Athlon! On occasion test 5/8 errors will occur even with name brand memory and a quality motherboard. These errors are legitimate and should be corrected.

I am often asked about the reliability of errors reported by Mestest86. In the vast majority of cases errors reported by the test are valid. There are some systems that cause Memtest86 to be confused about the size of memory and it will try to test non-existent memory. This will cause a large number of consecutive addresses to be reported as bad and generally there will be many bits in error. If you have a relatively small number of failing addresses and only one or two bits in error you can be certain that the errors are valid. Also intermittent errors are without exception valid. Frequently memory vendors question if Memtest86 supports their particular memory type or a chipset. Memtest86 is designed to work with all memory types and all chipsets. Only support for ECC requires knowledge of the chipset.

All valid memory errors should be corrected. It is possible that a particular error will never show up in normal operation. However, operating with marginal memory is risky and can result in data loss and even disk corruption. Even if there is no overt indication of problems you cannot assume that your system is unaffected. Sometimes intermittent errors can cause problems that do not show up for a long time. You can be sure that Murphy will get you if you know about a memory error and ignore it.

Memtest86 can not diagnose many types of PC failures. For example a faulty CPU that causes Windows to crash will most likely just cause Memtest86 to crash in the same way.

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So let me ask the question again, how do you or anyone know if a module is truly bad? I can give you a short answer: Truly faulty RAM will not allow the system to pass POST.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, Lord knows it's been known to happen.

Jordus

You are correct in that a truly totally dead stick of RAM wont allow a PC to POST.

But often times you just have a section of RAM thats gone bad, not the whole stick. This is the scenario where you can POST fine but may hang at OS boot, or even later on if the bad RAM is on a stick/portion that isnt used by the OS but is used later as overheard for other programs.

If there is one thing ive learned its that the same problem can act 100 different ways.

msteinhilber

Jordus is correct, you can and often do run into faulty modules that cause issues with the system. I would say it is a faulty module as well in my experiences, sure you can run into vendor incompatibilities and so forth, but I've had machines leave my shop working great after they were initially deployed, then months of years down the line develop problems. In troubleshooting either as a step one of us just tries or because of negative results on a memtest, we replace the RAM and in some cases the problem is solved.

I spent a good number of years in a role where I was in business to business sales for a local OEM. We ran like a franchise and I wasn't about to pay the $24 fee to have our production department build computers so I often built them all myself with the help of my other employees and wife if it was a larger 50+ piece order. Many times we have machines post but would flake out while trying to image the drives, and often times we replaced the memory and life was good.