Vista Ultimate - Won't Boot and Startup Repair crashes

[rodeworrier]

Boot Failure - bad ndis.sys, Status 0xC...C9, please insert Install disk and
repair
(I paraphrase)
Tried ALL boot options and got the same result, so I ran the repair from the
install disk. The Startup Repair ran for over twelve hours then I got BSOD:
STOP 0x0000000A (0xDE49854E 0x00000002 0x00000000 0x888BA8D7)

Tried boot again same results as before; i.e. ndis ...

Running Startup Repair again now, two hours and counting ...

BTW running repair off of Anytime Upgrade disk if that makes any difference.

Any clues?

 

[rodeworrier]

Thanks, this is indeed a clue, I'm running on a Dell XPS 700 with 4 GB of ram
so KB929777 - Error message when you try to install Windows Vista on a
computer that uses more than 3 GB of RAM: "STOP 0x0000000A" may apply, I'll
check it out tomorrow. The Startup Repair process may have gotten the BSOD
because of this. I think I'll pull the extra 2 GB out since it seems to give
me nothing but grief.

 

[rodeworrier]

BTW When I say "Startup Repair" I am talking about running System Repair from
the Install disk, that is what took twelve hours and ended with a BSOD. Is
that what you meant by a "Repair Install." If so I am currently six hours
into my second attempt. Judging by what I read starting at the link you sent
I'm betting that it BSOD's also. I'll find out in the morning. 18 hours on
this bugger is quite enough for now. (Actually I have not been spending that
time working on this one system, I've a few others keeping me busy also.
That's how long the repair attempt has been running.) Thanks to you I am
less clueless ...

 

[rodeworrier]

Unfortunately this is an multilayer upgrade, i.e. XP > Vista Business >
Anytime Upgrade (Ultimate) when I put in the PID during the Repair Install it
says for the product with this PID I must run the install disk from the
indicated Windows installation ... CATCH 22 jeez, I can't even do a clean
install.

Is there a way to downgrade to the Business Vista, or perhaps I should be
doing all of this from that disk.

Feels like I been rode hard and now all I can do is worry about what comes
next (thus the name.)

 

[rodeworrier]

Ok problem solved (for now, I will still have to do some cleanup I'm sure)

1) Lowered memory to 2 GB the key clue THANKS

2) Ran Startup Repair off of ORIGINAL install disk. It didn't do squat to
repair anything but it finished and gave me access to a command line. It
said problem unknown sent a solution request to Microsoft and returned a
standard "check recent hardware and software installs ...

3) the command line and the drivers on the install disk is all I ever needed
or wanted, I just couldn't get to it. the original error screen told me the
problem ... ndis.sys was corrupt. So I replaced that file from the install
disk, rebooted and it worked. Hopefully the extra memory caused the
corruption problem and it won't happen again. Looking at the events viewer
there a a pack of incomplete write transactions. We shall see ...