Windows Vista Recovery Disk - Long Delays

docmars

docmars

Member
Hey,

For some reason, I'm not sure if it's my computer specifically, or if it's the disk, but every time I put this recovery disk in my desktop computer and boot from it, the Windows Vista background shows up after loading the files, and then nothing comes up at all. All I see is the background and a cursor. Finally, maybe 5 to 10 minutes later, the Install Windows window comes up.

What took it so long?

My desktop is pretty new (not the newest system, but not old):

ASUS P5N-E SLI
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 2.4GHz
4GB DDR2-800 PC6400 OCZ Reaper RAM
160GB Hitachi SATA 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM
eVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB

Once I finally get to the Install Windows window, I click Repair Windows and the window that lists my Windows Vista installations pops up promptly. But the other smaller window that comes up with the infinite progress bar that says something like "Searching for Windows Installations" or whatever takes about 1 to 5 minutes to show up and finally I can continue.

Why do you think the entire boot CD seems to be working so slowly on my system? As far as I've tested, it works fine on my laptop.

Is it a problem with the CD?
DVD drive?
RAM? (since it loads the CD's files to my memory)
What?

If this is a common issue, what is a common fix?

Thanks a bunch :smile:
~ doc
 
Hi Doc, welcome to NST.
You seem to have ruled-out 1) by confirming that the CD boots fine on a different system.
And 3) seems unlikely if your system boots from HDD without RAM problems (unless your BIOS contains some obscure option to do a full RAM test when booting from optical but not when booting from HDD !)
That would seem to suggest that 2) is most likely, which you should notice at other times too.
Have you another bootable CD you can try to see if that also has problems ? (Gparted is free and always worth having a bootable copy around if you want one to act as a test)
To answer your implied question - I've not heard others complain of any delay with the CD ISO image hosted here. I don't have one. I've got a Real Vista DVD and that certainly doesn't hang at all.
 
I forgot to mention, this happens with pretty much any Vista Installation disk as well.

I tried my own, and I also tried a friend's and it does it as well. It just hangs and FINALLY, but the Install Windows window shows up after the longest time :frowning:

I have booted many other disks on my system, such as Windows XP Pro install disks, UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD), some live CDs, etc. They all work just fine. This seems to be a Vista-specific problem. I figured I would post here since you guys are familiar with boot processes, I assume, since you have released this recovery disk. I know you guys haven't written the boot code necessarily, but yeh.

It's a very strange problem. :tongueout: And annoying...
 
The Recovery CD made here is one directly from Microsoft. The 32 Bit version at least. It was part of the SP1 Beta stages where they offered this tool as part of the SP. They later removed it but before they did I made a ISO and saved it to my PC for keeping. It was later found out that it was removed but was still very necessary for people.

So i shared the 32 Bit ISO with Computer Guru who then created the Blog post and Torrent for it. From then on it is all him. :wink:

So i wouldnt think that your issue would be related to the Disc cause it is jsut a Vista Disc with install files stripped. Since you say that this happens with even a Vista DVD then i would say that it would be your system is not liking the Vista OS for some reason.

What are your system Specs? That might help clue us in.
 
I've got a similar problem. After the initial load screen it went black for ages. Now 15 minutes into it and only a responsive mouse pointer and the black behind it. Downloaded the torrent and burnt iso using imageburn with verification.
Reason for using the recovery tool: Disk read error on boot. can't seem to access any safe boot etc options.
This may be useful information: I was having major problems with the computer yesterday after installing a dodgy wireless network card that was causing blue screens. Uninstalled it and used seperate 2 registry cleaners afterwards to clean up the carnage. Seemed to fix it all up until todays drama when it blue screened again and I had to reboot..... but couldn't! That's when I got the disk read error problem

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer. You guys do a great job.

I'm using a Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz, Microsoft Windows Vista (x64 Ultimate) SP1 and have 8Gigs of RAM.
PS I downloaded the 64bit recovery tool not the 32bit one.
 
The delay is a result of the code MS uses. Depending on your bootloader configuration, partition layout, installed OSes, and more the Vista CD will run through one or more tests to determine the list of OSes + recovery options, and there isn't anything much we can do about it :frowning:
 
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