VISTA Boot Crash -- How to Fix???

J

jtwhitmer

Member
My HP Media Center PC when purchased ~2 years ago came with a Microsoft XP
Media Center OS. I subsequently upgraded to Vista (much to my chagrin). The other day when I tried to cold boot, I got an error message in the Windows Boot Manager window saying the following: "An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data. File: \Boot\BCD Status: 0xc000000f" The recommendation listed to correct this is to run the installation disks for the OS and use the "Repair" option on this disk to fix the problem. Unfortunately, since this is an HP, which initially had a factory-installed Windows XP Media Center OS that I subsequently upgraded to Vista, I do NOT have the XP installation disk or a full OS disk for Vista to do the suggested repair. I have tried everything I can think of including creating a Vista boot disk from the download off the NeoSmart website, without effect. I have tried using the Vista Upgrade disk as my boot disk after making the CD ROM drive the initial boot drive, with no effect. I also have used the repair function on the hard drive, without effect. I have even tried to use the so-called repair disks that I created after first purchasing the PC, with no effect. Everything I have tried ends up resulting in the same error message. The PC never seems to "get to" the boot information before this error message comes up. Anyone have other suggestions on what to try to repair this corrupted boot configuration data?? I am desperate! Please help. Thanks.
 
Boot the computer and press F8 repeatedly until the advanced boot options menu appears. Try last known good configuration and safe mode. If you can't get LKGC working, but can get into safe mode, use system restore.

When you have tried repairing the computer from the recovery disc, have you selected the Repair My Computer link in the bottom-left corner of the screen rather than the Install Now button? In the recovery options menu that appears you can either try startup repair to see if it finds any problems or system restore to use an existing restore point to put the computer back to the way it was when the restore point was created.
 
Thanks for the reply Justin. Unfortunately, it did nothing. I got the same error message which comes in safe mode (I think), just after the "blue" boot up screen with the Function Keys listed for Set Up Boot Menu, etc.
When I tried to repair from the recovery disks, it now goes straight to re-format hard drive (which obviously will delete everything on my C: hard drive. If I do that, I currently do not have any original disks (either for Microsoft XP Media Center OR for Microsoft Vista Ultimate) to re-install an operating system on the PC.
 
Find a friend who can lend you thier Vista DVD or download a trial from MS and use your product key (found on a sticker usually on the computer) to re-install Windows.
 
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