Vanilla Windows install hangs on disk.sys

Hi.

I'm trying to fix a Pavilion dv9823em. When I got it for repair, it would start booting and then go into some auto repair mode (some sort of HP tool I suppose). It would say that it is trying to repair Windows and then say that it can't repair and would not allow the bootup to continue.

I installed a fresh Vanilla version of Vista. The install disk loaded Vista onto the hard drive and then tried to boot into it. It hang with the message that "critical drivers are missing".

I then tried installing Windows 7 (thinking that it could do with the upgrade anyway). It installed, tried to boot into Windows and hang. I tried safe mode and I could see that it hangs after loading disk.sys.

I wondered if this was because of a missing hard drive driver. I checked the bios if it had a "compatibility" setting for booting without Sata drivers (like my Thinkpad does), but no such setting exists.

I checked the HP website for hard drive drivers as these can be installed during the Windows install. No such drivers exist.

The Bios has a hard drive testing tool which says that the hard drive needs replacing. But if this is true then why is it able to read the hard drive and get as far as loading the disk.sys driver?

 

Is the HDD in good health?

 

You think that I should do some more tests on the health of the HDD? I didn't think of that because the Windows install disk successfully writes to the HDD, and gets half way through booting. I would have thought that a HDD either works or doesn't.

 

It could be a secot in the HDD not so good.If it happened to me I would start from there, then subsitute the media,look for HDD settings in BIOS(not so obvious ones).

Can you boot with Hirens CD?if so may be a copy and paste might work for this sys file.