Win7 SP1 caused failure to boot?

so before i left this morning, i left my laptop up and running, plugged in, to let it finally start downloading SP1 and 2 other smaller updates. (sundays are pretty killer on the community internet). when i returned, i noticed that my resolution was all funky, and when i looked closer, it had rebooted into the restore boot, and it said "windows failed to start, can not fix startup errors" i clicked OK and it immediately shut off...

so now i've had to restore for my 2nd time... anyone else have this problem? i havent even had much time to install anything. albeit i didnt have any anti-virus yet as i was waiting for the download to complete (ESET NOD32).

now i have to start again and re-download everything :/ again... lol...

so, once i get this version up and running i need to create a backup recovery image of the "final product" clean so that i wont have to redownload everything. any specifics i should know? it wont replace my original "factory" image will it? can i back them up onto a spare hard drive/DVD?

 

alright, i dunno what the hell is going on, but i JUST got it up and running, i installed Firefox, Thunderbird, started downloading Windows Updates (29 of them, NOT including service pack 1), and i installed steam (just the launcher no games).

i reboot after finishing the updates...

it boots to the startup repair, and it says "startup repair cannot repair this computer automatically"...

so i have no idea wth is going on. this is pissing me off..

edit: i looked at the details. it says "Boot critical failure file : C:\ci.dll is corrupt"
repair action - : file repair
failed. error code = 0xa
time taken = 4836 ms

wth would cause this?

edit2: (didnt feel like bumping for another post, might get annoying for some folks?)
so.. i did a search on google. seems this was a problem with vista, and somehow translated into win7. i rebooted to see if the startup repair did anything (that restore takes FOREVER bleh). it came up again. this time, i let it do its thing, still failed, played around with the command prompt (didnt do anything) then i went to the advanced commands. tried the "repair startup" it said there was nothign wrong?? wth... so i clicked finished and it rebooted... and NOW it decides to start up.... wonderin wth is goin on here... damn gremlins. lol.

 

seems that every time i do an update it loads the startup repair... not sure whats going on... dunno if i need to do a full on 100% clean install from CD or what?

 

may or may not have found the problem. decided to run up Avira free for S&G's:
Master boot sector HD0
[DETECTION] Contains code of the BOO/TDss.M boot sector virus

however, i'm not sure i'm liking avira. the interface just doesnt feel right and i'm not a fan of how it completely stops when it finds anything :/ i'm mainly an ESET guy (what i run on my desktop) but i dont wanna pay for another copy, so its either avira or avast. avast is my next test.

also not that im having to install updates a couple at a time. i try to pick several different ones, ensure my restore point is good, then download/install and reboot. so far so good, but i've still got like 30+ to go i've noticed that alot of them have been failing if i select too many at a time.

 

Have you ran Combofix in the past on this system? Some Anti-Virus products will pick up false positives in Combofix's residual c:\QooBox folder.

 

No. And i removed Avira and swapped to Avast. i like avast better already, but now i'm getting BAD_POOL_CALL Bsods when it tries to run a full scan. it also finds something in the boot sector.

so i'm thinking... full clean re-install. from scratch. how would i go about doing that? is it like a normal windows 7 clean install just using the provided AW/Dell CD??

also getting random ads. they'll open up in new tabs in firefox, like "cashsomething.com" then firefox quickly realizes its spam and closes it.

def think clean install is my best/quickest option to solve this atm.

 

Yeah, I think you have a rootkit installed that Avast can't clean. If you want to reinstall from scratch, you can using a Windows 7 CD with SP1 integrated into it. Apparently the Dell Windows 7 CD that comes with the R3 is not compatible with the Intel SATA controller, which crashes 85% into the installation. Dell is aware of it and has a fix for it, but I suggest getting a Windows 7 w/ SP1 DVD. It will save you from a lot of frustration.

Your other option is to use AlienSpawn to recover to factory defaults.

 

tried factory defaults from the recovery. several times infact. same problem. i dunno if somehow it managed to integrate itself into the recovery? or maybe the recovery isnt actually formatting the whole drive? hmmm..

anyways... i wonder, where's a *safe* place to download a win7 SP1 dvd image? Remote location in the desert and noone out here has win7 :/ tho i do have a couple blank DVD's.

oh, and hows that gunna affect the drivers i wonder? i had a couple problems with 11.6. i dont *need* the switchable graphics. but it is a nice feature to have.

 

DigitalRiver contains links to the original ISO's, but none have SP1 integrated. I had to integrate SP1 into a Windows 7 DVD using RT7Lite.

 

:/ and of corse that means i'm gunna lose all the cool alienware stuff huh? like the desktop images and the cool log-on theme?

i dont suppose that its possible that my CD could work? i mean, i did place my order on the 23rd?

 

Worry no more
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ook-feel-after-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

you are a god! i bow down to you! lol thanks so much!

 

lol,no need to, you can simply press the rep button

 

It's doubtful that the install DVD will work, but you can give it a try.

 

nope, didnt work lol
and i just looked, i have 0 blank DVD's seems i used them all :/ and the BX isnt open yet.

so i really only have 2 options until it opens. 1 is a 2gb USB stick. doubtful that i'll be able to use that. the other is my phone - which has a 16gb micro SD card. i have no problem wiping my phone if i have to. the only problem is that i dont know if it will recognize it if i use it through the USB plug since the M17X only comes with a standard SD slot, not micro...

Of corse, the limiting factor here is the Win7 Iso download... which is currently downloading at a rate of around 20 kb/s, and its completion is around 1 day and several hours from now. lol awesome. wish i had known that the dell CD was junk before i starting having problems. i would have started downloading it from day 1 and i wouldnt be in this situation.

well, it seems to peak out every now and again up to a fast rate. its my day off, so in a couple hours once the BX opens up i'll be able to get some DVD's and/or thumbdrives and/or an external hard drive. thinkin about bypassing the SP1 integration, as the standalone installer is like 1gb which would tack on another horrible wait to just to get my laptop back into action from brick status.

edit: sittin at 62%. ~3-4 hours remaining (trying to watch some SC2 matches on youtube doesnt help)
i went and bought some DVD+R's as well as a 4gb USB stick.

anyone know of a good guide for using RT7lite? i want to integrate some of the alienware backgrounds and stuff before hand if i can. before wasting a bunch of DVD's i think i'll try the USB install first. that way if i dont like it i can always reformat.

will i lose the ability to swap graphics? or do i just simply have to install the drivers from the dell provided software CD?

 

created a win7 usb stick using the iso provided by digital river, and it also failed, just like the CD. you said it was the sata causing problems? do i need to integrate a driver or something? this is frustrating.

or do i have to integrate SP1? i would prefer it if i didnt have to download the whole thing before i installed.

EDIT
also, it seems SP1 isnt just a single file? how do i slipstream it using RT7Lite? i looked at the guide on their site but it doesnt exactly paint a good picture... do i just have to slipstream every file?

###nvm, i figured it out. man what a pain! cmon dell, SP1 has been out since march!

 

I know it's a pain in the @$$ , and even I can't figure out why Dell won't supply Windows 7 w/ SP1 media.

 

probably because when they ordered their Win7 DVD's for distribution, they ordered too many... so now they're stuck with a boatload of non-SP DVD's lol

and apparently something is up - still downloading SP1, but i tried loading up RT7Lite and following their guide, i cant for the life of me, find the "slipstream Servicepack" option. its not on the load page where it should be :/

not to mension how horribly slow RT7 is. is there any other option??

 

mmm well in the interest of skipping all this crap, i went and searched for the checksums from MSDN/Technet for the actual ISO image that includes SP1, ran it through my favorite torrent search engine, and i found a link to a torrent for an officially released non-tampered with SP1 image. how long it takes to download is gunna be another matter completely though :/ blah i hate internet here!! i want my verizon fiber optics!

 

Use something like acronis disk director / true image to fix this.. u can use that to fix the mbr/boot sect.

Something like this happened to me, I made a image of the drive/partitions and then used disk director to fix the mbr/boot sect, I think used true image to restore the drive... I finally used Alienrespawn to restore the factory image and it worked.

However your situation might be different, I figured I would share in case it could help.

Have you tried running AW diagnostics during post? Another time I had strange problems which were similar the diag found some problems.

I hope it works out for you.

 

You need to download the 2.60 Beta from their website to utilize the Slipstream feature.

 

*double post* sorry bout that. :/

 

Ah, that'd be why. why would they say that it does something it cant unless you use their beta? they should say that in their guide :/ software takes forever to load anyways, like 40 minutes just to extract the iso and load the image. cant imagine how long it would take to actually slipstream, then burn it to USB.

but it doesnt matter, it'll be faster to download the full OEM SP1. already at 37%. it'd be nice if Dell offered it as a free download due to the fact that their DVD dont work.

oh and, i can no longer do any sort of restore at this point. since i've already tried to reinstall and reformat the hard-drive, everythings gone. its fine. simple solution - get SP1 - and install Security software ASAP.

 

just an update.
finally finished the iso file. today was a good day, as everyone must have been out, and i finished up from about 39% up to 100% in less than about 3 hours.

now, the OEM microsoft SP1 iso does NOT contain any drivers, but it does install successfully. a 4gb USB stick is needed, and leaves about an extra 600 Mb for extra crap like drivers.

the ONE driver that i would carry around no matter what (if you dont want to carry around the extra driver CD) would be the wireless adapter driver. this allows you to use a wireless network and download any/all updates as necessary. (i suppose if i felt like waiting for RT7lite i could integrate it and all the other Dell drivers from the CD, but it takes too long)

for now, i'm going to rely on my USB drive and the Driver CD. i may burn the contents of the ISO onto a DVD. I can provide the torrent links i used if anyone is interested. If there's enough interest i will even create a post that maybe someone can sticky, as a sort of last resort workaround for dells failure to include a working clean SP1 install disc.

oh, and i ran Avast as pretty much my #1 priority to ensure that the rootkit i was having a problem with was eliminated. it was, and i am a VERY happy camper. i just have to finish up my driver installs and recover some of the lost data via my backup and i'll be good to go and on my way into finally getting more starcraft games in

Desert Per Diem: $3.50 a day
Alienware M17X R3: $1100.00
Gaming Anywhere in the world?: Priceless