Vista 64 repair disk burned on MacBook pro elicits no response in Hp drive

Leecarter

Member
The diagnostics run on my Hp vista by both the program on the hard drive and norton ghost 15 claim everything is okay, but I cannot boot to windows. I downloaded the 64 bit vista repair disk and burned it on my wife's MacBook pro onto both a cd and a DVD, but when either is placed in the Hp bay, the Hp computer ignores it altogether. (ghost is not loaded on the Hp, and it cannot find any restore points)

The recommended free image burn program does not appear to run on the MacBook, so I am uncertain how to burn a copy that works.

Any suggestions?
 
Hi Lee,

It sounds like either a) the CD was not burned according to the strict requirements for a bootable cd, or b) the HP isn't configured to boot from the CD drive.

A few different things to check:

1) Is the CD burned right? When you insert it into another PC, you should be able to see a few files (including a Welcome.exe) on the CD when you open it in My Computer.
2) Did you use the right medium? You probably should have burned this onto a CD-R (instead of DVD-R). If that doesn't work, try using a DVD-R instead.
3) Is the laptop configured to boot from the CD? This is typically done by pressing a key when you first turn your PC on to select the boot device, or else entering the BIOS and configuring it from there.
 
Thanks Mahmoud, but I'm still puzzled

I very much appreciate human kindness, so thanks for your prompt reply.

1. My desktop pc is configured to boot from the CD, as both Norton Ghost and Ubuntu (just discovered somewhere among the posts here and never used before!) boot from there. I changed the boot order on the bios before I started the attempt to repair.

2. Having discovered Ubuntu here, I downloaded and burned it onto a CD using my wife's MacBook pro, and it successfully booted my HP allowing me to copy files, which I hope will still be in their original word format. Because her MacBook burns the approximately 700 mb of Ubuntu which I then successfully used, I am puzzled why the smaller vista repair cd still does not work. I did try it again. I will burn another copy in the morning and try again. I will also take the vista cd to a computer store to check the directory, because I have no other pc available here. I've tried a cd-r and a DVD r.

Thanks again for your reply, and I would of course welcome any further advice.

Ps. Great avatar you have!
 
Hmmm. It may be worth pointing out that the repair CD will *not* boot automatically, instead, it'll show a message saying "press any key to boot from cd" and if you do not press a key, it will continue as if it were not there.
 
If you're getting "press any key to boot ....." then the CD is OK. That message is from the booted CD, incongruously. It's not a particularly accurate message and really means "Do you want to run my setup program from the start (press a key) or is this a reboot during install (don't press)"
Unfortunately though, HDD problems with the OS which you want to repair can also stop the MS CD from booting because it checks the HDD as it attempts to boot.
You can try using a bootable partition manager to run a file system check and repair (chkdsk) on the OS partition, then try the repair CD again.
 
Terry, I don't think the latter half of your post is what we're seeing here, as he's unable to even get to the loading screen....
 
Terry And Mahmoud, sorry for the confusion

I do not get the "press any key to boot from CD/DVD" message with either the vista repair cd or DVD (I just tried them both again - definition of insanity?), but I DO get that message with the ghost and Ubuntu disks. The BIOS is set to boot from the CD/DVD first. Thus I assume that neither repair disk was burned correctly. Perhaps Costco will let me burn a repair disk on one of their machines, perhaps not. I am of course puzzled as to why my wife's MacBook burned the Ubuntu disk correctly but failed on the repair disk. Is there another burn application that you recommend for the Mac?

I will try again with her Mac after I return from several hours worth of errands with my wife.

My thanks once again for all your efforts!

Ps. In my sleepiness last night I stated that I had repeatedly pressed any key when trying to boot the repair disk. That was true, but I did so in the absence of the query from the repair disk after many previous failures to boot.
 
It’s alive!

Mirabile dictu! Eureka!! Klaatu barada nikto!


Upon returning from my errands last night, I inserted the CD which I had paid Staples $5.00 to burn using one of their PCs and your vista 64 bit repair program that I had loaded onto a thumb drive. Slightly to my surprise perhaps, it booted immediately. I began updating my virus definitions and performed the necessary restart. Upon reboot, it showed the same error screen that I had been getting for a week. Not to worry. I ran your disk repair program a second time as it suggested might be necessary since it makes only one repair at a time. It booted properly again and I continued updating and another necessary restart. Another error message duplicating the one I had been receiving for the past week. Still not to worry. Your repair program conducted a third repair and again my HP booted properly. Each of the three necessary repairs took only seconds after all the files had loaded. After several hours, I had completely updated my programs, run a complete virus check, and done a complete backup on an external hard drive without any further problems!

Count me among the healed and a true believer! So thank you, Mahmoud and Terry et al, for your wonderful program, its inexpensive price, and most of all for the time and care you take in reading and replying to all of those posts. Clearly your time, effort and knowledge are worth far more than the meager price you are required to charge.

Lee Carter, Ph.D. (And yes, I should’ve been smarter to have a total backup instead of the partial one I did have!)

PS Curiously perhaps (or not), neither Costco concierge in the United States or Canada recommend you as a possible solution, nor does HP technical support, presumably because they want to sell their own more expensive disks which must be received by mail. Nor does Symantec recommend you either. Thank whomever for Google, which is the way I found you.
 
Excellent news, Lee :smile:

I'm thrilled to hear that everything is back up and running. Symantec at one point was directing people to our recovery CDs, but I believe that was only informally.
 
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