Main Forum > General Computer Support

Windows 8.1 laptop won't boot [Solved]

<< < (3/4) > >>

Tone111:
Yes I've tried Startup Repair but it didn't fix anything (that I could tell!), and it does a disk check of it's own (/f I believe), in addition to the 2 /r that I've also done, and all have come up clean.

I have done an SFC as well, which I think said it found some errors but couldn't fix all of them, can't remember now - I'll run it again after the Startup repair has tried (again) to fix any problems and let you know...

Rick:

--- Quote from: Shane on July 28, 2015, 11:02:52 am ---Grab the program called "WhoCrashed" and have it scan and it will look at the blue screen dump file and tell you what most likely caused the crash. :wink:

Shane

--- End quote ---

Shane; sometimes, we need take a break from reality:) maybe offer a glimmer of hope here:)
http://god-answers-prayers.com/miracle_prayers/never_known_to_fail/index.html

hope you get the point!
thank you for all you do!

Tone111:
Err, thanks Rick, but fortunately divine intervention wasn't required, this time at least!  :tongue:  :cheesy:

I managed to solve it by myself, but thanks for the inputs anyway, appreciate all the help I've had on here  :smiley:

Just for info, I ran the SFC scan and it turned up some corruption that it couldn't repair, so I guess that's still outstanding and will need a look at now I'm running again, but didn't allow the machine to boot. I went all the way through a bcd rebuild from one of your links Boggin, and even though it completed successfully and did something on a hidden small partition of my disk that I knew nothing about, it still wouldn't allow the machine to boot. Also re-tried the full chkdsk /r and system restore (Again!) out of desperation, all with no effect.  :sad:

Just before I was about to try one of Shane's full registry backups I decided to just copy the SYSTEM hive from the machine's own regback, which was more recent than my full tweaking backup, and voila, it's only done the trick!!  :artist: So now I'm back running again, only I've still no idea what the hell happened to not allow my boot record to be read and my machine not to turn on (any ideas anyone??), but it underlines the importance of doing (frequent!) registry backups to me, as I've used this method several times on both my machines to get non-running systems back on the go again, so all good for now!

Now to update and check/scan everything and then do some more backups...  :wink:

Boggin:
For us not so savvy (including me) how did you copy the System Hive and where is the regback to be found ?

Tone111:

--- Quote from: Boggin on August 01, 2015, 04:59:07 am ---For us not so savvy (including me) how did you copy the System Hive and where is the regback to be found ?

--- End quote ---

Fairly simple really, but can't be done from within Windows as the registry files are all in use and can't be accessed, so has to done from the RE, either the machine's own or a recovery or installation disk.

(1.) Open the command prompt, and (2.) navigate to the OS drive (C: etc, check with DISKPART, list volume if not sure), then (3.) to the Windows\System32\config folder. (4.) Rename (ren) the SYSTEM file to SYSTEM.old or .bak or similar to create a backup. (5.) Navigate to the regback folder (cd regback) - this works in both W7 and W8.1, not sure about older (or newer!) OS.. (6.) Type dir SYSTEM - a file should be displayed with the machine's registry backup of the SYSTEM file with a date stamp and size - this will give an indication of when the registry was last backed up by the machine, unfortunately I don't know how often this happens or whether it will always work, but mine was less than a week old and newer than my Tweaking Registry backup so I went for it!  :tongue: (7.) Finally type "copy SYSTEM c:\windows\system32\config" without the quotes, and with your OS drive if not C:, and your OS folder if not Windows, and this will copy the backup into the config folder. Exit out of the command prompt and restart the machine and if all's gone well it boots up again!

I have used this method before, but I guess it depends how old or compatible the registry hive backup is, and I don't know how to force a hive backup, so an alternative is to use Shane's Tweaking Reg Backup and navigate to the relevant folder there and use the dos_restore command to backup the whole registry from the batch file there - that was my next option had the fix above not worked.

Hope that's all clear... :artist:

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page