Vista doesn't boot

[Loran]

I have an Acer Aspire 9302 AWMi. AMD Turion 64 2.2GHz, 80 GB HDD (split into two internal drives C: and D:), 1GB DDR2 and it runs Vista Home Premium.

It's been repaired once and had the motherboard fixed. Anyway a while ago it suddenly refused to boot. In the beginning I could access the advanced boot options with F8 but now I can't anymore. So far throughout the duration of the problem I have been getting a "winload.exe is missing or corrupt" on a black screen which has options to continue or exit. If you click continue it goes to another page where you can either start Vista or some memory scanning app. If you choose to start vista it goes blank for a moment and then returns to the earlier screen with the "winload.exe" error.

I tried the BootAgent and the recovery CD but neither of them has worked. They both freeze when they are in the middle of copying the files. I also tried the alt F10 option which also allows you to try recovery but it also froze.

I have recently gotten hold of a Vista Install CD. I tried the repair function but so far the automatic one hasn't worked. I then tried to manually copy winload.exe with "copy c:/windows/system32/boot/winload.exe c:/windows/system32" I think it worked since that error has disappeared. It has now been replaced with an identical error but now with a file called ntkrnlpa.exe I tried to copy it in the same way as I did with winload.exe but it didn't work. I then tried to just go back to a restore point using the Install CD. It claimed that I didn't have any restore points.

I tried doing the "bootrec/fixboot" command which didn't produce any real results. Supposedly it didn't understand what I was asking of it. It only understood "bootrec.exe" command. I would then list some options including "/FixBoot" but when I try it still doesn't accept the command.

It's getting quite frustrating and I'm not really a wiz with computers. Anyone know what could be wrong or what I should try next?

Edited February 6, 2009 by Loran

[Kotuku]

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-re...tall-vista.html

Have you followed such instructions?

If you can locate the file on the HD? Either at

%windir%\$NtUninstallKB890859$

or (and this should be an original)

%windir%\ServicePackFiles\i386

or here

%windir%\Driver Cache\i386

You may be able to copy over an uncorrupted one.

[Loran]

Hmmm... There was an error after the part where you have to choose which system you have purchased.

How do you locate the file on the HD? SO far most of my copying attempts with various files haven't been succeeding for some reason.

[Kotuku]

You need to have hidden files and extensions enabled to be displayed.

If your install disk is before SP1 and your computer has been upgraded to SP1 then you can't do the repair install. You are stuck with doing a clean and new install of Vista from your disk (assume you have data backed up??) and then do the heap of Windows upgrades and SP1 patch.

I am not sure if you had done a CHKDSK, you may have some corrupt sectors/files that is causing the onwards corruption. You should be able to run

CHKDSK /R/F

Before the new clean install. I am assuming you can't get into safe mode to set up a CHKDSK from there?

[Loran]

You could be right about the SP1 thing. Not sure though... I got the system with the laptop over a year ago. So I guess there have been some upgrades.

As for safe mode I haven't been able to login in any mode.

[Kotuku]

Vista SP1 came out approx March/08. If you got your machine before that, then your OS disk will NOT be SP1 but your machine WILL have upgraded to SP1. Hence if you have exhausted all possible ways of fixing your current problem, then you are left with doing a clean and new install of Vista.