Vista won't boot from DVD

N

NHWyner

Member
OK. On Saturday morning, I rebooted my computer and it came back with the following error:

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM CD AND HIT ENTER"

So, I inserted my Vista DVD, it loaded to about 75% of the white bar on the bottom of the screen before the following error appeared:

Windows has encountered a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer.

If you continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

Status: Oxc00000e9

Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred.


I searched the web for this error and found several exampls of it. Including over on the Tech-Forums.com. They tried to help, but all they really did was point me here to NeoSmart and told to use the EASYBCD.

Now, I've been sick with the flu and I have been hesitant to do anything because I don't want to screw up the only working computer in my house. I've read most of the FAQs and such and my scenario really wasn't described because most people could boot from their Vista DVD, where as I can not.

What I need to know is this:

If I hook up my fubared HDD to this computer via an external USB drive housing, can I use the EASYBCD to fix that HDD without messing up the computer I am on?
 
Hi NHWyner, welcome to NST.

Unfortunately you have been misinformed. EasyBCD cannot fix the other hard drive... it is used to edit entries in Vista's bcd store or fix the system on the hard drive you are currently using/booted from. (You need the recovery disc like you tried in order to repair the other system).

However, you can try connecting it to your other computer and see if you can run error checking on it to scan for errors or to access it long enough to rescue any valuable files off of there. When the drive is connected, right click on it in computer and go to properties. Go to the tools tab and then error checking. It sounds to me as if the hard drive has either failed (too late to rescue data) or is in the process of failing.
 
kairozamorro said:
Hi NHWyner, welcome to NST.

Unfortunately you have been misinformed. EasyBCD cannot fix the other hard drive... it is used to edit entries in Vista's bcd store or fix the system on the hard drive you are currently using/booted from. (You need the recovery disc like you tried in order to repair the other system).

However, you can try connecting it to your other computer and see if you can run error checking on it to scan for errors or to access it long enough to rescue any valuable files off of there. When the drive is connected, right click on it in computer and go to properties. Go to the tools tab and then error checking. It sounds to me as if the hard drive has either failed (too late to rescue data) or is in the process of failing.
Click to expand...

Justin -
It wasn't misinformation. It was me asking a question as to the capabilities of EasyBCD.
Is the EasyBCD bootable from CDROM? In other words, if I was to put my fubared computer back together, can I boot using EasyBCD and fix my issues that way?

Also, I did run the checkdisk with the auto repair and it said it fixed things. However, the drive still won't boot. I continue to get the same error as before.

Is the only way to manually fix the Vista Bootloader to use the Vista DVD to boot from?
 
Since it found errors and supposedly fixed them, I would plug it back into the other computer and see if startup repair can get it to boot. EasyBCD does not run from a bootable disc of its own. It must be ran within Windows. If Vista's disc cant fix it then in most cases EasyBCD won't do you much good either.
 
Back
Top