Greg2k

Getting the same problem here, and I'll explain in detail. I downloaded the KB941649 patch manually from Microsoft's site on Thursday, after seeing a Windows Troubleshooting entry on my system suggesting me to install it. So I did that, and chose to Restart Later (because I'm that sort of guy, I guess). When I decided it was time for bed, I closed all my open programs and rebooted, not waiting for the reboot; I chose to reboot and just turned off my monitor. Next morning, I went to my PC and noticed it was stuck at the Installing Update phase of the reboot process. The aura ring was spinning, but I guessed the system had PLENTY of time to install the patch during the previous 7 or 8 hours, and I kept my power button pressed for 5 seconds. I powered my PC back up again, and Vista wouldn't load through the normal process. I powered off. Restarted, went into Safe Mode: same problem as you guys, stopped at crcdisk.sys. This is the sort of file you don't like getting in the way, especially if you don't have a really up-to-date backup of important personal files =( . But then I forced a reboot, pressed F8 again, and was greeted with the previously unseen Last Good Configuration option, which I selected. Lo and behold, Vista was running again. And the only noticeable difference I saw was a ton of programs dying because of DEP (Data Execution Prevention) errors (which I cannot blame this patch for, since I hadn't run them previously). I then went about to do my regular stuff, and upon installing an HP Officejet driver, I was asked to reboot for the driver setup to continue. I clicked OK. BIG MISTAKE. Now I can't boot into Vista any way. This is a fully-legal retail copy of Ultimate x86, US English version, so everything seems OK to me. Neither Start Normally nor Safe Mode nor Last Good Configuration do anything. I have no idea why this is happening. What have I done so far? Fortunately I had a copy of Hiren's Boot CD 6 lying around, and went into Seagate's SeaTools diagnostics program (I may have a Seagate disc, not sure, I hardly ever remember my HDD manufacturer =P but it should work with anything). The program told me my File Structure has Critical Errors. This would explain why the Vista booting progress bar stops and starts at very specific intervals. There was no option for repairing it from SeaTools so I decided to insert my Vista DVD and boot into it. I did so, selected Repair My Computer and was promptly suggested to use System Restore to boot into a previous restore point. I said OK. It did its thing, thought for a while, and rebooted my system. But the problem persisted. Vista still doesn't boot up. So I ran the Vista Repair My Computer tool from the DVD again, and said NO to System Restore. It then took about 15 minutes to go through the system, checking for the issue. Once it finished, after telling me how sorry it was that no reason was found , I clicked on "View diagnostic and repair details". All tasks had completed successfully, but the last line reported: Root cause found: ----------------------- A patch is preventing the system from starting.which made a hell of a lot of sense. But I still can't do anything. The Vista recovery tools I now have available are: Startup Repair: restarts the whole repair wizard System Restore: lets me use a Restore Point, which hasn't worked previously Windows Complete PC Restore: if I had a kickass backup, I'd choose this to restore my PC. BUT I DON'T =P Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: scans the RAM for errors. I'm not even going to bother Command Prompt: I imagine I'm going to eventually resort to this, but since I don't know exactly what file/s to delete or what operation to perform, I'm going to pass for now Would turning off my PC while it was theoretically updating Vista with this patch have anything to do with it? Maybe. But since nobody else is reporting an interrupted patch install, I'd have to go with NO. So, here's hoping Microsoft realeases an urgent patch to fix this...patch.