Sitting over at a buddies, checking out his computer for him. I have a friend that's much better than me he can goto, but he will want a little cash.

Unfortunately, not an option for them right now they have a kid, got laid off recently. Hard working guy, he will be back on top soon.

The computer (hp pavilion windows 7 x64 bit) is saying windows failed to start. It says to insert the disc. It didn't come with one, and he never made a recovery disc.

The error info:

"File: \boot\BCD

Status: 0xc000000f

Info:
An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data."


So I made a recovery disc off another machine... Not sure if that is ok...


Booted from the cd we made.

"First option:

Use recovery tools that can help fix problems starting windows. Select an operating system to repair.

If your operating system isn't listed, click load drivers and then install drivers for your hard disc. "

There are no systems listed. It seems like this will load drivers from the other machine.

"Second option:

Restore your computer using a system image that you created earlier"


I'm stopping here. I told he could stop by and I have a hard drive back it up.

Maybe we went down the wrong road. Not sure. Normally I would just wipe it and reload. But due to some interface with recording software and device we are trying to avoid that. Lots of drivers and such his brother loaded.

Maybe his mom will help out and I can avoid it. lol.

If you are interested, suggestions are more than appreciated. Probably gonna back up the files and wipe it tomorrow.

Try this:

Copy and paste that error code into google. The first choice that comes up will be "neosmart." Try following the instructions there. They seem to have some utilities that might solve this without an ERD.

I don't know if it will help or not, but I am just trying to find something for you. I learned a long time ago that when you have some obscure error, copying and pasting into google will often bale you out.

Hope this helps.

__________________
2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Will do. Trying at noon tomorrow. Gonna study up in the morning.

I searched but I didn't put it all in. Can't get to windows so no copy paste. It won't boot.

I'll watch for that word though. I can access a nice directory so maybe I can manually rearrange some stuff.

Many computers no longer "get born" with a disc - the recovery data is often on a partition on the hard drive. Look at the boot options when you start the machine - there might be one for HP recovery or such...

...still the best thing you can do for the guy is to download a decent LINUX distribution (I know not 100% helpful but once you live without ****dows you will never want to go back)

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

If you can boot enough to get to a command prompt, you can try "CHKDSK /R" which will repair bad or corrupt sections.

Something else I've done is to remove the HD from the offending computer and attach it to another computer via a IDE or SATA dongle. Then I check for virus' and do the chkdsk command.

__________________
-Evan


Benz Fleet:
1968 UNIMOG 404.114
1998 E300
2008 E63


Non-Benz Fleet:
1992 Aerostar
1993 MR2
2000 F250

I don't know if that's the best solution. I had a friend put Ubuntu on a spare PC and I can't do anything with it. None of the windows GUI actions work and I can't spend years at the keyboard trying to puzzle them out, I still have 2 jobs.

There doesn't seem to be an Ubuntu user manual anywhere, which is ok if you were born computing but I was born typing punch cards into a Vax 11750....

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

All great suggestions. Yes windows sucks and it's getting worse. Hoping 10 works out. I'm still running 7 waiting.

And I have to say, I have a MacBook Pro that is 8 years old. Never one problem. I buy a new $300 PC every few years. Have to for the software with work.

He has some software for recording. I'm not sure if a Linux option will interface with other PC's. His brothers and him play music and they are all hooked up online.

I can pull a command prompt. Will check that out.

And I actually did see the partition. But it's not allowing an actual repair. Just a wipe and redo. But probably better than loading the wrong drivers for the hd and really screwing things up.

It's been glitchy awhile I guess. Probably due to wipe. Unless you are superman and can straighten the whole thing out.

Thanks. Got an hour or so until I start again.

I'm gonna call is brother and see how performance was before. He's the one that will have to walk me through installing all the drivers for the music equipment.

Well 9 hours later and the backup is done. Lol. Gonna play in the morning. Told my buddy he could leave.

Few people I help like this. But he used to help me a ton.

This thread. I'm horrible at computers. People that feel the need to tell me how it is all day long, I need the help here. I'm listening and have zero arguments.

I thought you might have slammed in a linux image (only running in RAM - mounted the HDD) and just copied the hard drive contents (or My documents) to an external hard drive and then used the partition information to make a new installation...

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

The partition allowed access to the directory. But it took forever over usb.

I'm gonna try the command prompt and a repair. But probably will just wipe.

I felt like the partition should allow a repair, but it doesn't.

there's all this recording software and drivers. I have the discs and everything. But trying to avoid that.

Well I tried this.

think-like-a-computer.com/2012/04/17/boot-bcd-0xc000000f-windows-7

Then added the /s command but got kind of lost. We just started a recovery. Everything is backed up. Hopefully it works.

Did you run diagnostics? Could be a bad hard disk.

If not, just backup and reinstall. If it hasnt been done in the last 3 years it needs it anyway.

MS used to provide all of the windows ISOs for free, now you have to either call the OEM for recovery disks or just grab the isos from piratebay and use your existing license.

__________________
1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

Yeah it's weird. I could access the particion.

Diagnostics passed. Windows is wiped and up and running. Now the backup loading. Now the part I wanted to avoid. Protools drivers.

This thing runs so hot I can't believe it. But everyone said it. It's an HP something.

But I'm glad you said that about wiping. I do it to my own a lot because it's easier than messing with it.

Thanks.

Ok here's what we were scared of. His brother did this originally and is at see currently.

We are trying to instal protools 8. For vista. 32 bit.

Onto windows 7 64 bit.

He remembers something about installing the drivers first?

I'm googling it up but figure I should share my experience.