Accidental Dual-Boot

The Victim: Dell Dimension E520
Vista OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1

The Error:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairV2
Problem Signature 01: AutoFailover
Problem Signature 02: 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6001.18000
Problem Signature 03: 6
Problem Signature 04: 589832
Problem Signature 05: NoRootCause
Problem Signature 06: NoRootCause
Problem Signature 07: 0
Problem Signature 08: 0
Problem Signature 09: unknown
Problem Signature 10: 1168
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

This computer is my friend's computer. She had an external hard drive that she wanted to install inside the case. The computer was also running very slow. I started with the slow part. I discovered that a Sonic driver was at fault and Roxio was killing the speed. I uninstalled these programs and drivers. Installed Advanced System Optimizer 3 and did about three deep scans. Uninstalled expired McAfee and installed AVG.

Now it was time to install the hard drive. When I opened the case, I discovered the Hard Drive was an IDE hard drive or PATA. The motherboard only allowed SATA. So I bought a IDE to SATA converter. (IDE to SATA Adapter - Converts IDE Drive to SATA! CX-ITS1002
) This didn't work, so I check the drive in my computer to see how much data was in it. She used 1GB of 320GB. I decided to take a SATA hard drive from a spare computer I had and Install that for her. I installed the drive, connected it and powered up! I forgot that the drive had an XP OS on there! So, Vista tried to load, failed and went into startup repair. While startup repair was running the dialog said some personal information maybe lost. I got scared and forced the repair to stop.

Disconnected the XP drive and powered up. Vista will no longer load. When I boot in safe mode it sometimes gets stuck at disk.sys or crcdisk.sys. I tried everything here Windows no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration and everything here Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki. The recovery iso did not have bootsect.exe on there so I had to download one to my flash drive to preform the BCD repair. None of these worked. I also ran chkdsk c: /f from command prompt.

So what is next? I was think of cloning the Vista drive onto the XP drive using my W7 computer. Run a recovery on the XP(now Vista) drive from the recovery partition. Then copy everything from the original Vista drive over. Will this work or is there a better option?

Thanks in advanced
Anthony
 
With the second drive disconnected run startup repair. It may take 2-3 times to fix it.

To verify that none of the system files have been corrupted, run sfc from the command prompt:
sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows\
 
I have tried startup repair from the recovery partition and recovery disks many times.

I will try sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows\ and post the results.

Addendum:

X:\Sources>sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows\

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
 
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Ok, you said that sometimes you can manage getting into safe mode? If you can do that, I'd recommend giving System Restore a try. Select a restore point before any time in which you installed any software. I'm beginning to think it may be AVG or some other software you installed that may be causing this. I've had bad experiences with AVG on W7 before where AVG's driver would cause a blue screen.

When it is functional I would recommend Microsoft Security Essentials instead of AVG. Completely free, and being Microsoft it runs very smoothly on Windows.
 
I can never get into safe mode. When I try it hangs at disk.sys or crcdisk.sys and then reboots.

AVG was working fine before the Hard Drive install.
 
I tried system restore a few times, no dice.

Addendum:

What other information can I give you that may be useful? Keep in mind I am stuck with the recovery options and command prompt. I was also wondering this, what if this is a 64 bit system and I am trying 32 bit solutions? I have no clue if that is possible. Is there a way to tell from command prompt which is installed?
 
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A re-install well be needed. You can rescue your friend's data with Ubuntu unless you want to hook the drive up to your computer.

Addendum:

What other information can I give you that may be useful? Keep in mind I am stuck with the recovery options and command prompt. I was also wondering this, what if this is a 64 bit system and I am trying 32 bit solutions? I have no clue if that is possible. Is there a way to tell from command prompt which is installed?

You've got the right disc. If it wasn't than you would have got an error message. I'm not sure if you can check 32/64 bit status from the recovery enviornment.
 
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Nope, EasyBCD doesn't run off a bootable cd (yet) and with no restore points that work, sfc/chkdsk not reporting any problems, startup repair not working, inability to boot into safe mode, and the manual recovery steps not working theres not much more you can do.

Here's an idea though. Re-attach the drive and see if Vista well invoke startup repair again. This time let it finish, than we'll see what we need to do next.
 
I have Windows 7 on 4 of my PCs and I think it is the most stable windows by far. My only complaint is, and excuse me if I say this in a noob way, it doesn't utilize quad and six core processors. My CPU usage is low, memory is available, but some softwares still lag.
 
Thats because you're not doing anything that requires such computing power, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you have that kind of power at your fingertips :smile:
 
And normally it's the app which would need to be coded to use parallel processing to take advantage of multi-cores. An old app won't run any faster, but you could run several of them together (should you need to) more quickly than on a single core CPU.
 
tell me about it. it's one of the hardest things in the world to make an app utilize all available cores to split the work!
 
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