I hate you vista.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-20 14:38

Vista(64 bit) currently cant finish loading on my laptop even in safe mode(bsod if i use any safe mode but the screen wont stay long enough for me to tell what the message is. I have tried to disable the automatic restart but that just makes windows try to start as normal which leads to the whole stick on the loading screen thing which leads to the whole 30+ minutes of loading windows and nada problem. I'm probably going to have to get a friend to make a windows recovery CD and etc.

Incase I have to reformat(which i might do incase a virus caused this) i was wondering if there;s any way i could manage to copy my files to my portable HD? I had homework due today that i cant get to my professor now thanks to this and yes i know i should have backed stuff up. That was kinda what i was going to do this Friday in preparation for me doing a vista--> 7 upgrade.
Is there some type of operating system i can install into a CD or my portable HD for booting to let me rummage through my files and copy them off before a possible reformat?Linux?

The hd and technically everything else physical seems fine from what i can tell since the shitty OS(?) that Asus has for an alternate boot(which was made for people too retarded to use a normal computer so i cant do much other than web browse, play music/photos and chat on msn) has no problem with looking through everything for finding the music/photo files on thier browsers(cant do anything other than look and open the music/photos so no I cant copypasta that way). The filemanager program they got on it infuriates me since it can actually do "real" browsing and move files but only for external hard drives with no way to access the C: drive. I have some files hidden so being able to find those would be a bonus.
And yes im actually posting this on the laptop that cant even finish loading in safe mode without crashing.

**Isiolia** · 2010-01-20 15:11

- Vista should have a "repair" option if you boot from the DVD. Worth a shot at least. Sometimes just running Checkdisk or similar can fix that sort of problem too. It really depends on what the core issue is, which is hard to say exactly.

- There are bootable Linux distributions (and other OSes) that will let you browse/copy files. Alternatively, you could pull your HDD and put it in an external HDD dock/enclosure to plug into another machine to back your stuff up (or effectively make it an external drive for the built-in Linux to access).

**bungiefan** · 2010-01-21 16:17

If you have another computer and a drive enclosure, you could just pull the hard drive out of the laptop and browse it on another computer. I've got two enclosures for all types and sizes of drives for just that reason.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-22 13:29

The windows vista 64 bit recovery CD i got a freind to download/burn wasnt even noticed for some reason so i'm gonna try plans b and C.
B is get an alternate OS on the portable hD(any reccomended? i dont have enough permissions to install it on the computers i have access to alone atm so i might as well shop around while waiting)
C is try to remove the hard drive and copy stuff out of it while hoping the My documents and Music folders aren't protected if i can.
D is just use the CD that came with my laptop from asus which doesnt have a repair option and will erase everything to reinstall windows.

**Isiolia** · 2010-01-22 14:05

B - http://www.knoppix.net/ should work for you from a CD or DVD. I've seen others offer the option to run from the disc though too now.

C - Linux (or Mac) will ignore the Windows permissions to back stuff up. With Windows you may need to take ownership of the folders first, but you can do it. I've done it lots of times.

D - Wouldn't consider using that until you get your files backed up. Short of the drive itself having failed, no reason not to.

**QuePsiXI** · 2010-01-22 14:14

Microsoft should write a book on how they keep tricking jilted ex-lovers into coming back.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-22 16:00

Used knoppix. didn't show up as bootable. Then I put in the CD that came with my laptop which had worked previously( i didnt go further than seeing if it worked since i'd have lost data previously) and it didnt work as well. It seems that for some reason that option has become disabled.
I at least found out that google earth and AVG dont mix well together and can cause a similar problem but i have no way to get past safe mode and uninstall it to test that out.

**Kryssan** · 2010-01-23 08:44

If you want to read the BSOD, get a digital camera or the like and put it on record mode as the computer boots. As long as it flashes on the screen, you can view the video from the camera in step by step frame mode and see what the message is. I've had to do this several times in the past and it works well enough.

Will any CD be recognized by your computer? Sometimes with laptops the drive becomes unseated if you knock or bump it, though that typically only happens when the drive is removable. Assuming it is removable, try reseating it and see if this corrects the read issue. Also, can you access BIOS? Do an idiot check and make sure BIOS is booting from the CDROM first. For your Linux OS attempts, how are you burning it? Is the checksum good? Try burning it again but at a slower speed, or with a different burning program. Make sure the program has some sort of option for making the disc bootable. A lot of laptops tend to be finicky about which discs they'll accept to boot from though. I remember the old Dolch machines at work I used to administer being a royal pain in the ass in that department.

If you still can't get a CD to load, and the HDD isn't difficult to remove, go spend a few bucks for an external enclosure and use that to copy the contents of the drive so you don't have to be concerned about any drastic measures you take which wipe it.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-23 14:51

I made some progress this morning. The bios trick did work but idk why since previously i was able to select where to boot from without defaulting the dvd/cd drive in bios.(f3 at startup then pick from the CD or harddrive)
I'll try the camera trick as soon as the files from it are removed for space(not my camera).
With the booting problem gone I was able to load up knoppix and this error shows up upon attempts to look in my C drive so I might be closer to knowing whats wrong.

Cannot mount Volume
unable to mount the volume "Vista64"
Details:
ntfs_attr_pread_i:ntfs_failed:Input/output error
Failed to calculate free MFT records: Input/output error
NTFS is either consistent, or there is a hardwar fault. or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first
activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the "dmraid"
documentation for more details.

There any way to force a mount and copy off the basic stuff? I tried to google it but the commands they used there were slightly off and i dont understand how to use linux command codes enough to edit it.

Oh yeah and thanks for the help so far.

**Caiyuo** · 2010-01-23 16:08

You actually need a handful of commands once in Linux to be able to access your Windows drive. Try what's listed under this link: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-computer/ - It's written for ubuntu, but the linux commands should be the same so just pay attention to parts like these starting from here:

What you’ll want to do is open a new Terminal from Applications \ Accessories \ Terminal on the top menu. Once you’ve done that, then you’ll want to type in a bunch of commands, which I’ll walk you through.

First, we’ll want to switch to “administrator” mode, which in Linux terms is known as “root”. The simplest way to do it is with this command:

Code:

sudo /bin/bash

**Skjie** · 2010-01-23 16:22

If you hit F8 while booting, you can tell windows not to reboot on failure, letting you see the message without having to use a camera or something.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-23 20:11

Latest attempt using the guide Caiyuo linked to. I'm starting to wonder if the Harddrive really is damaged

knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ sudo /bin/bash
root@Microknoppix:~# mkdir /media/disk
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk -o force
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda1' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda /media/disk -o force
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sda' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t vfat -o umask=000 /dev/sda1 /media/disk

root@Microknoppix:~#
root@Microknoppix:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97646c29

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1530 12289693+ 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 1531 38914 300280475 7 HPFS/NTFS
root@Microknoppix:~# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /media/disk -o force
ntfs_attr_pread_i: ntfs_pread failed: Input/output error
Failed to calculate free MFT records: Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.
root@Microknoppix:~#

**Caiyuo** · 2010-01-23 20:27

eesh, those linux error/help messages are hilarious. lol Maybe ask if a moderator can change the title for you to something asking for help to backup using linux to possibly rope in some more linux-savvy users? I really can't tell what the deal is or where the error lies within that message.

**rosemarie** · 2010-01-24 03:58

Try using PartedMagic instead. Pretty foolproof for trying to grab stuff out of dead hard drives and such.

http://partedmagic.com/

**Kryssan** · 2010-01-24 07:49

Originally Posted by Khajit

I have tried to disable the automatic restart but that just makes windows try to start as normal which leads to the whole stick on the loading screen thing which leads to the whole 30+ minutes of loading windows and nada problem. I'm probably going to have to get a friend to make a windows recovery CD and etc.

Originally Posted by Skjie

If you hit F8 while booting, you can tell windows not to reboot on failure, letting you see the message without having to use a camera or something.

I wouldn't suggest the camera if there was an easier method. That wasn't even 3 sentences into his post, c'mon Skjie.

PartedMagic is more of a partitioning program, but I suppose you could use it as a free version of Ghost or the like to try cloning the drive or to test the drive and see if it is a mechanical failure. But it'd be easy for someone who is new to it to just destroy stuff by accident. PartedMagic is also much more powerful from CLI, which the author admittedly doesn't know very well.

Really, external enclosures are not that expensive, and its a pretty definitive way to test and see if the drive is damaged. If its a software failure you'll have no issues just copying the files straight from the drive, and the only knowledge required is how to remove and attach the drive. So long as the laptop isn't the type to make you dig out the internals to get to the drive, this shouldn't be an issue. Most of them nowadays are easily removed. If you want to be really lazy/cheap, you don't even need an external enclosure really. Just another computer.

**Khajit** · 2010-01-24 09:12

Got some help with the commands on a knoppix forum to make the backup, managed to repair windows (safe mode only since normal boot wasn't working still), then i went back to safe mode and had chkdsk startup the next boot. I fell asleep by then since the backups had taken a few hours so ill have to check for a log to see what was wrong later.
It's time to go scan everything from the top down incase a virus did this once i stop being half asleep.
Thanks for the help everyone.

**donutseeds** · 2010-02-09 21:12

Absolutely. Just get a linux live CD. Go to ubuntu's web site and grab the latest, they're the most user friendly. From there just copy the files over. You can also run the repair from withing the linux live cd, but you have to do it manually. It's not too hard though and there are a few tutorials on how to do it online. Just google them.

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