vista will not start. blue screen comes up and says this...

J

jabsjabs

Member
hi. my vista windows will not start. it goes to the login screen then a couple seconds later a blue screen comes up and my computer restarts. i have tried what i can but i cant figure it out. this is what the blue screen says. any help is greatly appreciated.

A problem has be detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen,
restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow
these steps.

Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is identified in the stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.

Check with your hardware vendor for any BIOS updates. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced startup options, then select safe mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000BE (0xC0000005, 0x81E80759, 0xA71D291C, 0x00000000)
 
Have you tried "last known good ...." from the F8 extended boot menu
If that doesn't work, try "safe".
If you can get into safe mode, use system restore to go back to before this started.
If you can't access system restore from safe mode, it's one of the options you can try from the repair disc
 
System Restore doesn't affect user files.
Vista sets restore points for all significant system changes (like Windows Updates).
Call it and you'll get a list of all the points available. You can see whether there's one from before the problem.
 
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Have you been tidying/tuning your startup tasks ?
System restore is turned on by default (unless you've allocated such a small partition for your OS that it can't fit it in), and to have no restore points would suggest
a) you've turned off the restore/shadow copy service.
b) you've no space on the OS drive
c) you're dual-booting with XP and have not prevented XP from corrupting your restore points
If you've been making regular backups of your system image, now would be the time to go back to the newest.
First rescue your user files like this.
If you don't have backups, and the advice in the BSOD message didn't help, use the above technique to get copies of all your user data onto external storage, and then invoke the "factory reset" option which should be outlined in your PC user guide.
 
i know i didnt turn off my restore points and i have room for it to do it automatically. and i am not dual booting my computer.

i dont think i have been tuning up my startup tasks.

what can i do? doesnt the techinal information in my first post tell what the problem is?
 
Unfortunately not.
It just says "something's got screwed up, try undoing whatever it was you did"
If you've no idea what caused it, you've tried the options they suggest, you don't have any restore points, and you don't make backups, there's not much you can do short of the previously mentioned factory reset.
Use the technique I linked to make sure all your user data is safe first.
When the PC is back to factory condition, before copying back all of your user files and reinstalling all of your apps, investigate System Restore and make sure it's turned on and you have enough space allocated.
Vista is the most difficult version of Windows in which to do this. In XP it was a simple GUI option, and in W7 it is again, but in Vista you need to do it with the VSSAdmin command.
Vssadmin resize shadowstorage
 
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You should certainly bring Vista up to SP2 level for security reasons (and all subsequent fixes), but you won't be able to do that until the system is working again, and when you do it, better do it through Windows update than download the whole thing. (It will tailor the download to suit your hardware, and avoid wasting time on unnecessary items)
If windows update appears to be broken, did all this happen immediately after doing updates ?
If you applied a WUD and it broke the system, you can get free one-to-one help from Microsoft. follow the links from Windows Update > Update History to find an email submission form.
 
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