Vista blue screens when loading

[Un Gato]

I have a Dell XPS 1730 laptop that has had some problems with unexpected shutdown, likely due to heat. I've had the heat sink and fan replaced, but the day before that occurred the laptop started blue screening every time I try to boot it up. This is the sequence when I try to turn it on normally.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4828/img0077mfp.jpg
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/2182/img0073b.jpg
[URL="http://img269.imageshack.us/i....us/img269/7018/71790921.jpg[/url[/COLOR][/U]]
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2236/img0074pea.jpg
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4350/img0075t.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6720/img0076omw.jpg
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4828/img0077mfp.jpg

The startup repair option here does not work, it simply refreshes that screen. I do have the original Vista disc (32 bit ultimate) and am able to run startup repair through that, but after several runs there's no indication it will be any help.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9123/img0087wor.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8254/img0088ogx.jpg
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/517/img0089imz.jpg
http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/8585/img0090vzb.jpg

I tried a system restore as well, with no luck.

I'm trying to follow the instructions from here, but I'm not sure what letter to use in step three: "Replace x: in the commands below with the letter to your CD drive as detected by the Windows Recovery environment ." I'm not sure how to tell which letter refers to the cd drive, and e, the letter that I think used to be the drive, isn't working. This is as far as I've gotten: http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/7840/img0095hoj.jpg

As you can tell, that's not very far. I'm also a little uncertain about when to include spaces, as the vista repair page from this site seems to add unnecessary spaces prior to every forward slash, which I've excluded in my attempts.

When I run the chkdsk function this is what results: http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9853/img0070muv.jpg

Sorry about the pictures being sized badly, but any help I could get on this would be excellent. If there's any way to not lose my data at this point it would be great.

 

[Un Gato]

I replaced the bootloader as described in step four here, I was messing up the spacing as I thought. The only change is that I now can try to open it in safe mode, but it blue screens all the same. I can also run Ubuntu off of a disc, which seems to indicate that the hardware is fine.

 

[Terry60]

I'm sorry Gato, I've tried to follow your problem via the imageshack links, but they're just too unwieldy to take in the detail.
Can you resize them with Paint to 800x600 or so, and attach them here directly.

(Click the "go advanced" button below the "quick reply" dialogue box and use the paperclip icon for attaching files, then upload your smaller images)

 

[Un Gato]

I will resize them tomorrow at school, Ubuntu is refusing to open Gimp for some reason.

 

[Un Gato]

Ok, 1-6 was the loop if I tried to start Windows normally prior to replacing the bootloader. The whited out box in screen 3 was the startup repair option, but on that screen it didn't work, it simply refreshed the screen. Screen three after replacing the bootloader is now the standard safe mode/safe mode with options/normal boot screen, but safe mode blue screens as well.

11-14 are screens from the startup repair log. The log seems to differ whenever I run the startup repair, but the x490 error is consistent, as is the claimed root cause. I already tried a system restore to the last working point, which seems to suggest that the root cause given there is wrong.

111 is the chkdsk result.

 

[Coolname007]

If you use .jpg format instead of .bmp, we'll be able to look at the screenshots without having to download them onto our HDDs...

 

[Un Gato]

I've really been failing hard at the images, sorry about that.

 

[Coolname007]

Ok, your problem seems to be your BCD having a mis-configured entry, so since its apparently looking in the wrong place, it can't find winload.exe. You will need to correct the problem manually. Can you boot from the Vista dvd (or our recovery disk if you don't have one), access the command prompt, and post here the output of the following command:

bcdedit

 

[Un Gato]

I'll do that, but after doing everything here and not getting any results I'm not certain if that could really be the problem.

 

[Terry60]

It seems to me, after looking around at 4F and 490 errors, that you've got damage to the OS, probably a corrupted registry, that's not likely to be fixed by a startup repair. Normally I'd advise using the Vista DVD recovery console to attempt system restore to an earlier point, and/or chkdsk /f to attempt a repair of bad HDD blocks, but I believe you've exhausted those possibilities already.
The next stage is to acquire a free Live Linux distro (this one should be suitable), burn the ISO to a CD, (using a free copy of Imgburn), boot it (in "run without changing the system" mode), and start a rescue of your user data to external storage.
When you're happy that you've saved everything you need, use the Dell "factory reset" to get your PC back to showroom condition and reload your user files.

 

[Un Gato]

I've booted into both Ubuntu and Knoppix via CD, but I've had a hell of a time trying to both figure out how to use the terminal (first time Linux user, sadly) and trying the various methods I've found. Again, that I have a RAID 0 is coming back to bite me in the ass, it slashes my options. How exactly would you recommend I try to access the RAID array? I'm having difficulty navigating the Linux filesystems, I'm not used to Linux terminology yet.

And here's the bcdedit result, as well as a few new startup repair screen in case anything's changed.

 

[Coolname007]

Do you know which drive letter your Vista partition had (as seen when booted in Vista)? Also, do you remember which partition drive letter was marked as "system" in Disk Management (if you have ever looked at it)? I noticed both parts of the BCD (i.e. the bootmgr entry, and the Vista OS entry) is pointing at the C: partition. This may be correct, or it may not be.

Just curious, but do you have multiple HDDs connected to your system?

 

[JustinW]

I've booted into both Ubuntu and Knoppix via CD, but I've had a hell of a time trying to both figure out how to use the terminal (first time Linux user, sadly) and trying the various methods I've found

With the Ubuntu live disc you should not need to use the terminal to copy over your files to external media for safekeeping while you re-install Windows. Simply open two "Computer Browser"s, and navigate one to the place you want to copy your user data to with the other to the folder where you store your files. From there on its as simple as selecting your files, right-clicking "Copy" and "Paste" or dragging the files from one Computer Browser window to the other.

 

[Un Gato]

Do you know which drive letter your Vista partition had (as seen when booted in Vista)? Also, do you remember which partition drive letter was marked as "system" in Disk Management (if you have ever looked at it)? I noticed both parts of the BCD (i.e. the bootmgr entry, and the Vista OS entry) is pointing at the C: partition. This may be correct, or it may not be.

Just curious, but do you have multiple HDDs connected to your system?

Yes, I have two HDDs in the RAID 0 array, which is why all of this is so much more complicated in the first place. And as far as I recall I've only ever seen the C: drive referenced for system files, though that drive is scattered over the two HDDs. I don't recall what A: or B: were, but I know D: was an unused recovery partition with nothing on it (kind of kicking myself for not using that) and E: was my disc drive.

Addendum:

With the Ubuntu live disc you should not need to use the terminal to copy over your files to external media for safekeeping while you re-install Windows. Simply open two "Computer Browser"s, and navigate one to the place you want to copy your user data to with the other to the folder where you store your files. From there on its as simple as selecting your files, right-clicking "Copy" and "Paste" or dragging the files from one Computer Browser window to the other.

The only two things under the Computer browser are the disc drive and "Filesystem", which only has about 1.7 Gigs in it according to it's properties. Linux isn't able to recognize my array automatically.

 

[Mak 2.0]

You have a BSOD of F4.

Bug Check 0xF4: CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION


The first parameter is 3. Which says on that page that the process image file name is what is causing this. the overall cause is this:

Several processes and threads are necessary for the operation of the system. When they are terminated for any reason, the system can no longer function.

My suggestion would be to get GParted a LiveCD, format your drive to NTFS and reinstall Vista. The current install is corrupted in such a way that a repair is not possible. One or more of the critical system files are done for.

If you want you could try a Restore Point. On the Repair my PC Screen use the Restore option there and see if you can get a Restore point to get you to a time before this happened.

 

[Un Gato]

Well, that definitively eliminates some of my options. I'm gonna wait to see if there's any chance to get any of the data back via Linux first.