Unable to boot into Vista (Nothing but a black screen !)

Posts : 2 Points : 4 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-07-04

Hi,
I am facing a strange problem on my laptop. When I try to boot, there comes just a blank screen and nothing after that. Now I know the windows is corrupt but I dont have any windows-disk. Can anybody please help me??

EMERGENCY USB BASED VISTA RESCUE DISK:

INTRO:
I had an HP laptop with Vista that was entirely corrupt and would not boot in any recovery or safe mode
without a blue screen of death appearing. This was my solution, I hope it can help you out...

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
Windows Vista Recovery Disc (Included)
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

This gives you a torrent to download an ISO image for a rescue CD. My issue was I was in a hurry and did not have access
to either a blank CD or burn software so I needed to put this ISO onto a bootable USB key.

To do my repair I needed to install the CD ISO files onto a USB key then get a bootloader to run the package effectively
booting a CD's contents off a USB key. I could not find any (easy) method that would allow me to do this through the
command prompt. Vista requires you to successfully boot into Vista to fix it. Dumbest thing I have ever seen. So I had
to invent this combination of packages to set up a USB key to run the repair CD off of it without invoking Vista at all.

This package contains several freely available downloads and if you do not want to trust the contents of this package
you can read the instructions, download the individual components yourself and cut out the middleman.

You will need:

The above Windows Vista Recovery Disc ISO (Vista_Recovery_Disc.iso) included
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (hpflash1.zip) included

Grub4DOS (grub4dos-0.4.3-2007-03-10.zip) included
https://gna.org/projects/grub4dos/

A bootable floppy disk OR the following files:

COMMAND.COM
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

Note: The above files are copyrighted by Microsoft and NOT included in this package for that reason

Last you need a USB RAM key of at least 128MB in size. The total installed size of this package on the key is 120 MB
so any smaller will simply not work. I did this set-up on a WinXP (SP3) workstation, but it should work on any recent Windows platform.

WHAT YOU DO:

1) Install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool onto a working PC or laptop.

2) Insert the USB key you want to use onto that PC.

WARNING: All contents of the USB key will be erased so backup anything on there you want to keep.

3) Insert a bootable floppy disk into the A: drive.

4) Format the USB key with the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Ensure you select "Create a DOS startup disk" option or it will not boot.

Select A: where it says "using DOS system files located at:".

NOTE: If you do not have such a disk or no floppy drive is installed on your PC, you can point where the three indicated
MS files are under where it says "using DOS system files located at:".

5) Once the USB key is formatted take the contents of the Grub4DOS package and place them onto the USB key.

6) Take the ISO image files and place them onto the USB key. I used 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) to extract them from the ISO without burning.

7) Create a file called menu.lst with a text editor on the USB key. In that file place the following info.

-------- Cut between the lines ---------

title ntldr from USB key
find --set-root /ntldr
chainloader /ntldr

title bootmgr from USB key
find --set-root /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr

title MS-DOS boot
find --set-root /io.sys
chainloader /io.sys

-------- Cut between the lines ---------

...and save the file. This lets you boot into W2000 / XP (ntldr), Vista (bootmgr), and DOS (io.sys).

Cool

Remove the USB key from your working PC and insert it into the broken machine with no power applied to it.

9) Boot the broken PC and boot into the USB key.

NOTE: You may have to change your BIOS settings to allow this. The USB key MUST be set to boot before the hard drive or it will not work.

10) You should eventually see a DOS Command prompt. Type 'GRUB' (without quotes) and hit enter. The GRUB loader should start.
Select the OS you want and hit enter. On a Vista machine, the rescue disk should boot and let you fix your files.
I see no reason why other utility software would not work with this same method.

However, I can not give any warranty or guarantee. It worked for me and it has worked for many other people I know.

Posts : 2 Points : 4 Reputation : 0 Join date : 2009-07-04

hey thanks.....but thats too technical 4 me tongue

....i ll ask someone to do this for me...but thanks anyhow