Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
[SOLVED] Boot problem/s
MilesAhead:
That is wild. I never heard of a machine without a positive off button. Sometimes I have to hold it down for about 7 or 8 seconds. But it always kills the Laptop. My sample size is rather small. This Toshiba is the only Lappy I ever owned. :)
tomos:
That is wild. I never heard of a machine without a positive off button. Sometimes I have to hold it down for about 7 or 8 seconds. But it always kills the Laptop. My sample size is rather small. This Toshiba is the only Lappy I ever owned. :)
-MilesAhead (July 23, 2015, 05:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
well, the battery drained - (I'll update OP after this):
Hiren's Linux worked:
# I got the user files off of it
# I deleted Hiberfile.sys
The machine does boot to Windows Startup Repair, but not further. (A System Restore did not help.)
I now see Startup Repair says:
-------------------------
Root cause found:
-------------------------
Boot configuration is corrupt
Result, Failed. Error Code = 0x3
-----------------------------
According to MS, the 0x3 code is:
-------------------------------------
ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND
3 (0x3)
The system cannot find the path specified.
-----------------------------------
There are three partitions:
# Dell Recovery
# OS
# Boot
I have one image of whole drive courtesy Aomei Backerupper -
will try restore the boot one, but too late now for me (1am here) - will have a go tomorrow.
[What broke it is another story :-/ if necessary will go there tomorrow]
Shades:
Sounds like the order of the partitions got jumbled up in (parts of) the Windows configuration.
During the boot routine some hard-coded path's are used and it appears that there things go wrong.
Windows partitions are assigned a unique code that is later on translated into a drive letter. My suspicion is that here your problem starts. Suddenly all parts of the operating system are not in the location where the operating system expects them to be and a generic error code 0x3 will be served up to your screen.
Fixing this kind of errors might prove more time-consuming than re-installing or putting an image back. Laptop manufacturers have the nasty habit lately to put the recovery partition in front off the other partition. The reasoning behind this doesn't make a lick of sense to me. After all, this is the fastest part of the hard disk, which should be used for the Windows partition. After all, you will spend more time using the laptop instead of restoring the factory setup!
My guess is that they do this, so they can crank out laptops faster. Anyway, even the Windows installer gets "confused" by this on occasion.
What you could do...and this is a dangerous, possibly warranty voiding proposition:
* Buy/borrow a USB hard disk enclosure
* Pull the hard disk from the laptop, put it in the enclosure
* Hook the enclosure up to a (Windows) PC
* Install software to manage partitions on that PC
* Start moving partitions on the disk (in the enclosure!!!), use this order: BOOT, OS, Dell recovery
* That order of partitions never confuses!If the above sounds like too much mumbo jumbo to you, get someone with the required skills to do it for you.
That is what I would do, if you asked me...and I know you didn't.
Or put the image you already have back and see if your trust in Aomei Backerupper is warranted.
tomos:
Sounds like the order of the partitions got jumbled up in (parts of) the Windows configuration.
[...]
Laptop manufacturers have the nasty habit lately to put the recovery partition in front off the other partition. The reasoning behind this doesn't make a lick of sense to me. After all, this is the fastest part of the hard disk, which should be used for the Windows partition. After all, you will spend more time using the laptop instead of restoring the factory setup!
-Shades (July 23, 2015, 09:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes,
it seems to be:
(1) Boot
(2) Recovery,
(3) OS
(3) Boot
[edit] appears the boot partition does come first - but yes, Recovery should be at the end - or not there at all ;-) [/edit]
Or put the image you already have back and see if your trust in Aomei Backerupper is warranted.
-Shades (July 23, 2015, 09:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
Haven't gotten back to this yet - but planning on starting with image restore for Boot partition and see if works.
Then I could the consider the option of messing around with the partitions.
I thought I might be able to modify the partition simply via a boot USB stick but not sure what software will move the partitions - I'm wary of using Partition Guru now, unless I know what exactly caused the problem. Will research (maybe Gparted).
Vurbal:
Sounds like the order of the partitions got jumbled up in (parts of) the Windows configuration.
During the boot routine some hard-coded path's are used and it appears that there things go wrong.
Windows partitions are assigned a unique code that is later on translated into a drive letter. My suspicion is that here your problem starts. Suddenly all parts of the operating system are not in the location where the operating system expects them to be and a generic error code 0x3 will be served up to your screen.
Fixing this kind of errors might prove more time-consuming than re-installing or putting an image back. Laptop manufacturers have the nasty habit lately to put the recovery partition in front off the other partition. The reasoning behind this doesn't make a lick of sense to me. After all, this is the fastest part of the hard disk, which should be used for the Windows partition. After all, you will spend more time using the laptop instead of restoring the factory setup!
My guess is that they do this, so they can crank out laptops faster. Anyway, even the Windows installer gets "confused" by this on occasion.-Shades (July 23, 2015, 09:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
I ran into this exact problem last year after replacing the hard drive in a Dell laptop. The restore process is supposed to hide that partition at the end of the restore process, but doesn't necessarily do so. IIRC I found a way to do it from the command line. If I get some time, I'll see if I can find the command I used.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version