VISTA SP1 Hosed PC

[opdoc]

Well indirectly anyways !
Sequence of events (or screwups on my part)

1 - Vista SP1 started with networking problems "NVIDIA nforce controller dirver not working properly or installed" - Tried to uninstall driver - get new drivers, unistall let microsoft provide driver with SP1 - uninstalled driver and went back to old version of driver before Vista SP1 - end result same - NO Internet.

2 - So this smarty pants went and got old NIC card and installed in PC - disabled onboard lan card in bios and booted up. Windows started but no change in network connectivity. The lan card also had a scsi controller by Symbios. Rebooted and went to Symbios settings(F6 at bootup) and made all setting auto (Did not know what I was doing but did it anyways). Reboot and hosed the boot up. From this point onwards - does not go to windows and stops with Cannot find driver error - and stops there - only thing can do at this point is reboot and reach same place again. I believe the drive error was a result of going to default setting in bios after a few reboots.

3 - Got a another new Lan card (NIC card is official name) and no difference - so uninstalled all cards and went back to on board lan - but same cannot find disk error. Then monkeyed around in the bios and found that there were no setting for hdd in bios and then went and looked for them in "auto" from the bios utility and FOUND THEM.

4 - But still cannot find boot information on either of the two drives. maybe i deleted or overwritten on the autoexec.bat (Do we still have those in vista pcs???)

Final Status - The end result is that all i can do is access BIOS and make any changes to BIOS settings - but wont go any further than that.
I tried to get Vista boot disk - well i found that now I have Vista SP1 maybe the Vista boot disk may not work.

Fear - I do not want to reinstall Vista (Have disk) but would have to reinstall all the software on it (A pain) and definitely do not want to reformat the hard drive as I have some family pics not backed up. (Have two dvds worth of data backed up in December 2007 - so am not that bad with data backup but will lose all photos since then)

Help: The rambling was to give a background of the problem instead of "My PC wont boot" story. Any of you with more experience with similar issues - I will be happy to hear.

I do not have a problem to work hard to resolve the issue compared to reloading OS and other applications. Also may learn a lot in the process to "How Not to screw up in the future"

Thanks for your patience in reading my SNAFU..... :$

[jbennet]

well i found that now I have Vista SP1 maybe the Vista boot disk may not work.

use a program called vlite to combine sp1 and your vista dvd to make a new vista dvd, including sp1, so that you can then use the recovery/repair tools

[opdoc]

use a program called vlite to combine sp1 and your vista dvd to make a new vista dvd, including sp1, so that you can then use the recovery/repair tools

Do you recommend a version of vlite. v1.1.1 of v1.1Final or vlite 1.1 beta2?

Just to clarify - I have Vista Home Premium DVD and installed Vista SP1 on my PC that will not go beyond bios screen - gives hardware boot error...

SO I take the Vista DVD and use vlite to create a new DVD with another PC - This should (hopefully not guaranteed) get the Vista Pc to boot and then I can go to restore.

BTW - Vista SP1 got rid of my old Vista restore points - the earliest vista restore point I saw was after the SP1 install.

[jbennet]

yeah

i used nlite (the xp version of vlite) to do a similar thing. my xp cd was the original edition and i needed to do a repair reinstall so i used it to slipstream sp2 into it, to make a new cd.

dont touch any of the otehr tweaks/removals, just use the option to integrate a service pack

At the end, you can get it to turn the dierctory structure into a bootable .iso (disk image) , which can then be burnt to a dvd using a tool such as nero or deepburner (free)

[opdoc]

yeah

i used nlite (the xp version of vlite) to do a similar thing. my xp cd was the original edition and i needed to do a repair reinstall so i used it to slipstream sp2 into it, to make a new cd.

dont touch any of the otehr tweaks/removals, just use the option to integrate a service pack

At the end, you can get it to turn the dierctory structure into a bootable .iso (disk image) , which can then be burnt to a dvd using a tool such as nero or deepburner (free)

**********

You said " i used it to slipstream sp2 into it, to make a new cd" I am sorry I dont know what that means and how to do that with my xp laptop that I want to use to repair/reinstall vista.
Thanks a bunch.

[opdoc]

**********

You said " i used it to slipstream sp2 into it, to make a new cd" I am sorry I dont know what that means and how to do that with my xp laptop that I want to use to repair/reinstall vista.
Thanks a bunch.

****************** UPDATE************
I don't believe it is a vista problem - mostly setup problem in the BIOS.
What I figure last night is I cannot get the motherboard to recognize the SATA Hard drives.
I have two - it recognizes one of them and incorrect size - it shows 137GB or 120GB depending on the Auto or Large selection I do in the Size on the BIOS screen for drive detection.

Reading around - the next step is to find the correct drivers for the SATA as per the 137GB size limitation explained very well on the Seagate support website. I do not have Seagate but it applies to all makers - the motherboard will project a max of 137 GB if proper drivers are not installed.

This is turning into an education of sorts. But am confident that I am headed towards resolution.

Thanks for reading my update - ANY SUGGESTIONS OR THOUGHTS WELCOME.

[bobbyraw]

if you have 2 hard drive, i suggest you remove the slave drive and use just your mast to boot the PC. set the master drive with the correct jumper setting. once you boot you you can then add back the slave drive

PS: did you have an installation of vista in the second drive?

[opdoc]

if you have 2 hard drive, i suggest you remove the slave drive and use just your mast to boot the PC. set the master drive with the correct jumper setting. once you boot you you can then add back the slave drive

PS: did you have an installation of vista in the second drive?

***********
No. I use my 80GB for OS and programs and the second 250GB for data.
But I will do that - also I found on my Gigabyte mobo K8NF-9 Rev1.x that I can select USB-FDD as a boot device. I do have a USB Floppy drive that I will try to use to install the proper SATA drivers.

But now I am tempted to see if the same can work for a USB drive(memory stick) lots more memory on a USB drive than a floppy. We'll see - I will post the update after working (can't call it work - enjoying the troubleshooting experience ) on it tonite. But a qualifier - dont want this kinda fun all the time . LOL