Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

Unable to Re-install Vista


  • Please log in to reply

#1
00dog

00dog

    Member

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 21 posts
The computer is a Gateway Laptop which came with Windows Vista Business. The computer apparently crashed while in the possession of another user, who attempted to install Vista Home. When I got it, it would not boot up. I managed to reinstall Vista Business from the Operating System Disc that came with the computer and boot normally; however, although about 100 updates downloaded and installed, several wouldn't. Chkdsk showed numerous missing or corrupted files.

I tried repair, and clean installs (several times),formatted the driver and clean installed, again and again, but the install fails.

The Windows Boot Manager displays,

"File: \Windows/system32\drivers\adpahci.sys

Statis: Oxc00000e9

Info: Windows failed to load because a critical system driver is missing, or corrupt."

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks.

00dog
  • 0

Advertisements


#2
phillipcorcoran

phillipcorcoran

    Member 1K

  • Member
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 1,293 posts
Others with this same error have reported that their hard drive was faulty/starting to fail (they ran diagnostics on the drive to confirm this). Since replacing the drive with a new one they haven't had that error.

Another possibility for that error is a corrupted Registry, but since you already tried a clean install several times it does seem to me that a failing/faulty hard disk is more likely. Perhaps the person who borrowed your laptop has accidentally dropped it or something similar? That could have damaged the drive which in turn would be the reason why Windows crashed when they had it.

You can test the drive with drive manufacturer's own DOS-based diagnostic utility which runs from a bootable CD - available from their website as a downloadable ISO cd-image from which you create the CD using nero burning software (or similar) in Windows.
  • 0

#3
00dog

00dog

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 21 posts
The hard drive probably is bad. I'll do that hard drive check you mentioned; I hadn't heard about that.

Thanks
  • 0






Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP