Vista Ultimate will not boot

[Guest]

I just installed Ulitimate 32 bit over XP Media Edition and all seemed to go
well. When windows finally started for the last time and my desktop came up,
I thought "wow, that was too easy". Then I get an error code about a modem
driver that needed updating and Microsoft had an update for it available.
The dialog box then directed me to Windows update at which point it did a
search for any and all updates needed. After a few moments, it came back
with 11 critical updates needed, totalling about 20MB.

I'm thinking great, kill 11 birds with one stone. I clicked to download and
installed the updates and windows restarted at the end of the process, like
always. The trouble is, now windows won't start! I got the safe mode screen
and tried to start in safe mode - no luck; still says windows could not load.
It also suggested I boot from the DVD and choose "repair my computer", which
I did. All seemed to go well, as the repair log said there was a corrupt
boot driver (no, I didn't write it down, but it was in the sys32 directory, I
think) and it was repaired. I went back to my bios and chose to start
windows from the local array (my C drive is RAID 1) and it still won't boot.
In fact, now it won't even boot from the DVD! What the hell? All this from
downloading updates from windows update? I'm writing this from my "other"
PC, still running XP. Can anyone help?
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Jan Hyde]

Steve T. <[email protected]>'s wild thoughts
were released on Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:37:00 -0800 bearing the
following fruit:

I just installed Ulitimate 32 bit over XP Media Edition and all seemed to go
well. When windows finally started for the last time and my desktop came up,
I thought "wow, that was too easy". Then I get an error code about a modem
driver that needed updating and Microsoft had an update for it available.
The dialog box then directed me to Windows update at which point it did a
search for any and all updates needed. After a few moments, it came back
with 11 critical updates needed, totalling about 20MB.

I'm thinking great, kill 11 birds with one stone. I clicked to download and
installed the updates and windows restarted at the end of the process, like
always. The trouble is, now windows won't start! I got the safe mode screen
and tried to start in safe mode - no luck; still says windows could not load.
It also suggested I boot from the DVD and choose "repair my computer", which
I did. All seemed to go well, as the repair log said there was a corrupt
boot driver (no, I didn't write it down, but it was in the sys32 directory, I
think) and it was repaired. I went back to my bios and chose to start
windows from the local array (my C drive is RAID 1) and it still won't boot.
In fact, now it won't even boot from the DVD! What the hell? All this from
downloading updates from windows update? I'm writing this from my "other"
PC, still running XP. Can anyone help?
Thanks,
Steve

No consolation I know, but this happened to me many, many
times when allowing Win XP do install updates.





Jan Hyde (VB MVP)

 

[Guest]

Ok, well I seem to have managed to straighten 90% of my problems. The
biggest thing that I found that I think may also be causing problems for many
others on this forum; is that you have to be patient and let it do its thing.
When it seems to hang, just resist the temptation to do a hard restart and
leave it be. Eventually it will come up and work itself out. It took me
several hours of multiple "repairs", boots from the DVD, upgrades, patches,
all requiring a restart that took 5-8 minutes each. But not most everything
is working, although I'm still working on updating some conflicting DLLs,
etc. Now when I restart, it seems to boot up just fine.

The moral of the story is to be patient and don't interfere with its
process. It does not give any indication of what it is doing, so it appears
to be hung. Walk away and come back to it and it may be just fine.

Steve

 

[Ben]

I'm running into what appears to be a lockup after the first reboot during a
clean install -- when it's doing the 'completing installation', before the
regional settings and whatever comes after that. I've let it go for up to
30 minutes. No hard drive activity, the keyboard and mouse become
non-responsive, no DVD drive activity, etc. Are you saying this might not
be a lockup and I should let it go on?

 

[Guest]

Yes, I don't actually know how long it took, because at the 30 minute mark, I
went to bed and woke up the next morning and it had booted up fine.

 

[Bob]

I thought the same thing on my comp...no hd activity etc...after 20 minutes
or so up it came..I'm sure the time period varies depending on the
complexity of the install and I would give it more time to complete.
Bob