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The issue:
Windows Vista 64 Ultimate won't cold boot.

Temporary Solution:
If I put my cd rom as my first boot device and put in my Windows Vista install DVD, watch it ask if I want to boot from a cd, and ignore it, then my normal boot menu will allow me to choose between my dual boot Vista 64 and XP. Everything works fine after that.

Needed permanent solution:
I need my system to boot without having to put my Vista DVD in the drive everytime I want to start my computer.

Other useful information:
1. The issue began after a Windows Defender update.
Restore sessions to before the update instantly installed the update again.
Restore sessions prior to the update are no longer available to me. (I guess I don't have that much space allocated to different versions, there seem to be about 5 options, all of which are now newer than before the update)

2. Installed a firewire hard drive the same day as the update.
Installed or not does not seem to affect the boot situation.

3. Vista and XP are on two separate IDE Drives.

4. No other hardware or software changes made in the days prior to boot failure.

5. A friend of mine reported a similar failure after downloading and installing a windows update.

6. Uninstalling windows defender definition updates is as far as I know... impossible.

Please help! This is incredibly annoying

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Hello, and welcome to Geeks To Go.
Do you get the boot menu options screen when you try to boot with out the DVD?
Using the DVD to access the recovery console, type fix mbr and press enter.
Since you know how to use the disc to boot I am thinking that you know how to access recovery console.
Here is a link that may help.

Edited by hfcg, 01 March 2008 - 07:15 PM.

[hfcg]

Hello, and welcome to Geeks To Go.
Do you get the boot menu options screen when you try to boot with out the DVD?
Using the DVD to access the recovery console, type fix mbr and press enter.
Since you know how to use the disc to boot I am thinking that you know how to access recovery console.
Here is a link that may help.

Edited by hfcg, 01 March 2008 - 07:15 PM.

[2of6]

Your comments got me on the right track.
In the recovery version of windows I was able to open the command prompt and run
bootrec.exe which is the program in vista that included fixmbr and fixboot and rebuildbcd. It was rebuildbcd (bcd stands for boot configuration data) that ended up being the solution. At first it didnt' work because it said there wasn't any vista operating systems installed. Luckily microsoft has a way to remove all bcd data so that a rebuild will build from scracth.

I found that info here
http://support.micro....com/kb/927392/

I also found this site to also be helpful on the topic of a usb drive causing windows to lose track of boot data.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934540