Need help with V1s and vista recovery

Hi all, Like many I deleted my recovery partition when I first got the notebook. I was getting alot of BSODs yesterday so I backed up my data and put in my asus recovery disk and got this error "Cannot load imagex 0 from src WIM file" So after digging around on the forums someone suggested this might be a problemwith the recovery DVD not recognising the updated bios (300) so I tried to roll them back by taking out the HD and putting it in mydesktop, copying over all the biosfiles, and then trying to use easyflash to put them back, unfortunately easflash refuses to open 208,206, and 209. To make matters worse for whatever reason my other vista DVD dosent work, I tried installing it twice and it goes through the whole process but just sits on finalising your config, for like 11 hours (Left it runningovernight) and nothing happens, when you reboot it just sits on the loading screen indefinately.

I ran memtest and HDtune and both came up fine so it dosent appear to be either of them, Can anyone suggest anything?.

 

sometimes memtest doesn't tell you if you have bad RAM, I would try remove one stick of RAM at a time at run Windows setup again.

 

Thanks Ken, Ill give that a go.

 

Nope, still get the same error message, Now trying to install XP, I will run the bios flash util from that to see if I get better results (and to see if I can get XP to install) But yeah, So not happy, Ive had this notbook for about 3 months now and ive had 3 screens, 2 mobos, and both modular and mainbattery die on me, and now this?. And of course being Australia nothing will be open untill after NY. I really appreciate your help though.

 

Seems its a bios issue, when using easyflash it says "Unable to load bios from external rom" Any ideas?

 

If I could get ahold of a retail copy of vista business I think I could get it to work because it dosent rely on the Bios to activate. Anyone know how I could get a copy? I have no intention of buying one, Since I already own a liscence for this laptop.

 

I was able to go back to BIOS 209 from 300.

1: download 209 to USB portable drive.
2: unzip the file.
3: turn on the laptop and hold F2 to enter BIOS.
4: Go to Advance>IDE Configuration>Primary IDE Master and press enter
5: At the HD TYPE: [Auto], change to "Not Install"
That's because easy flash will look for C: drive, you must disable laptop HD so your external USB drive will be C:

6: Press F10 to save and exit BIOS
7: at Asus logo screen press and hold F4 to enter easy flash
8: At easy flash screen choose Drive C: as drive path
9: look for V1SAs.209 at right hand side of the screen and press enter.
make sure it's V1SAs.209 not V1S209AS.zip
if it's wrong file you get :
unable to load BIOS image from external rom.

 

How odd, When going through the F2 enter easy flash it fails to open, the exact same file works when using F4 though.

Either way I still get the same error when trying to use the recovery disk, Tried 206 as well and still failed. I used my high qaulity desktop burner to make a copy of the disk andI got zero read errors, so if its not the Ram, The HD, The bios, or the optical media why do I keep getting this message? I get past the "would you like to install to 2 partitions, whole HD"ect, Then when it starts to do something it fails.

 

I don't why either.
Do you have a external SATA HD? if you do try connect to eSATA port and disable the internal HD, recovery Windows to the external HD to see if it's the HD problem.

Forum member Susan had similar problem with her V2S, we tired everything to recovery Windows without success even with the external HD.

 

What did you end up doing in the end?. I tried a spare Sata HD I had, same problem.

How do I go about getting a retail copy of Vista Business?.