Vista startup problems

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As you guys know, I am trying to fix a friends laptop.

The problem is that I can only boot into Safe Mode.

When I start the system it gets as far as the Vista welcome screen and then reverts to the safe mode boot menu.

If I choose ‘Start Windows Normally’ it get as far as the welcome vista screen and instead of booting into Vista it goes back to the safe mode menu…

I did some off line scans and found some Java exploits and cleaned them out but it still wont boot normally.

I would appreciate some suggestions..

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Whatever nasty was there may have wiped out some important files in the OS. Can you try the installation media and do a repair install? Without an installation media or Repair Disk, you might be looking at buying a new Vista Disk, or upgrading to a newer OS.

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Well Ted, I’m running chkdsk on it now and then I will run Malewarebytes rootkit scanner…

There is no disk with this laptop but I can do a recovery back to factory condition if all else fails…

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That might be the only option. I hope you find the problem with the scans. A factory restore will create other problems such as reinstalling all apps. Hopefully she backed up all data.

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You may be right Ted…
I do plan on saving everything..

Luckily there is not that much on it.
A lot of pics and stuff that I will burn to a dvd.

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Often when a system will only boot into safe mode, it is a driver problem. Were any drivers updated recently? Can you find the current drivers for the PC?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe, I don’t think anything was updated.

I do get a message during safe mode boot that it can’t find or load a device but I have no idea what device it is..

I looked at event viewer and saw nothing.

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sorry, but I guess that you’ll have to resort to a factory reset since you don’t have installation media.

Joe

--Joe

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Yeah, it seems that’s gonna be the only way to go.

I’ll ponder it until tomorrow and then decide what to do.

Thanks

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Did you try a clean boot?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Jerry

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Yes, I tried that but after it booted all the services were back on.

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Yes, I tried that but after it booted all the services were back on

Does that mean it sucessfully booted without going into safe mode?
Did you disable the non Microsoft services in the services tab of MSConfig? I’ve never heard of a case where they were then renabled after boot.
Can you run SFC /scannow from an elevated command prompt in safe mode?
Jerry

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I ran scannow …

After disabling the services it still would only boot into safe mode. I disabled ALL services.
When it booted into safe mode the services were all turned back on.

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Well guys, Being the recovery is in a hidden partition I was able to do a system repair using F8 to boot into those options.
The system repair found nothing wrong…

I really don’t know what else to do short of a complete recovery.

Unless any of you have any ideas I haven’t tried yet.

Anyway, thanks for all your suggestions and help…

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I guess you have to decide how many more hours you want to spend on what is appearing to be a loosing battle. I would think the full restore to factory would be the way to go. You can then eliminate junk and install apps. I think the restoration might be less time consuming than throwing things at it with the hope the right thing will be hit upon.

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I know Ted, but I love the challenge of trying to fix it…

I’ll probably do a complete restore tomorrow.

It’s not my laptop and I’ll save all her pictures and other stuff before I do.

Anyway, thanks for your input….

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Might be a bit farfetched, but have you considered a stuck key? Any schmutz in the keyboard like soda pop can cause weird behaviour. (Don’t ask me how I know :huh:)

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Thanks for your input Bob..
I checked all that.

Doesn’t matter now because I did a complete recovery and it’s now working fine..

And thanks to all the members of my fan club that offered their suggestions and help..
There will be a little something extra for you under the tree this year..

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Thanks for your input Bob..
I checked all that.

Doesn’t matter now because I did a complete recovery and it’s now working fine..

And thanks to all the members of my fan club that offered their suggestions and help..
There will be a little something extra for you under the tree this year..

I’d like a Crucial Adrenaline drive!

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Too bad you had to resort to a complete recovery but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Glad you got it resolved though.

Joe

--Joe

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Well Joe, I played around with it for a day or two before posting here about it.

I just mailed it back to her yesterday…

I have Team Viewer on it so when it gets delivered tomorrow and after she has her wireless back up I’ll log on and tell her what I did…
Being it’s Vista I have Windows update to notify first but from what I have read they are no longer supporting it so I may just turn updates off completely when I log on.

I did save all the pics she had on it and other data she had.

Also, I made an image and saved it to an external drive I have and then burned them to DVD’s and packed them with the laptop.

It was quite a learning experience..

One of the things I like about Team Viewer is I could save all her data to my computer without having to burn disks..

After all was finished and running normally I just transferred all the files back to her laptop using Team Viewer.

Anyway….I’m happy and she is too.

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As long as it has SP2 installed it should get security updates until April 11, 2017 which is the end of extended support.

Joe

--Joe

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Being it’s Vista I have Windows update to notify first but from what I have read they are no longer supporting it so I may just turn updates off completely when I log on.

Vista mainstream support has ended but it will have extended support until April 2017.

See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/lifecycle

For the difference between mainstream and extended support, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifepolicy

Jerry

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Hit F8 when booting, and choose VGA mode. If you can get in that way, then there is a video problem, nothing more.

That’s for future reference, because I just read your post where you did a recovery.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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When you boot the system to the multi-boot option page, rather than choosing “Safe Mode”, try “Last Known Good”. That should boot you to the last configuration that actually worked. Now, if Windows sees the boot into Safe Mode as the one that worked, then you might have to reinstall.:huh: HTH.

Added later… opps, just noticed your post about doing a complete recovery. Oh well, future reference with the Last Know Good info, I suppose.

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Doc, as I said earlier.I could only boot into safe mode….
The last know config was tried and didn’t work.

But thanks for the thought.

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