Vista fails to boot - crcdisk.sys

[sargan]

I have Vista 32 bit home ultimate on Dell 9200, it has 2 HDD but no RAID
Regularly run CCleaner and it is protected with Kaspersky anti-virus, up to date with all MS patches & SP’s

I was trying to install an app, (Creative Zen Organizer) and it failed to complete each time ... contacted manufacturer who asked me to boot up in safe mode and install from there.
It failed every time I tried to boot up in Safe mode.
Now fails to boot up at all.

Sequence steps attempted -Boot up using F8 .. and get Safe Mode option, but when I select it ... runs through a load of files then stops ... the last file is always the same crcdisk.sysI used VISTA disk to try ‘startup repair’ ... no difference
Tried rollback to previous system restore points ... tried 5 different points ... all failed
Tried multiple combinations of repair + restore all failed .... safe boot still stops at crcdisk.sys

Tried using F8 and reboot to “Last known good configuration” .. starts, then just reboots

On advice ran
• cd \windows
• del *pcmcia*.* /s/p
• del *1394*.* /s/p
No change

Created Western Digital DataLifeguard and Segate Disktools, along with Vista HDD diagnostics and Dell 32 bit diagnostics all show all h/w ... incl HDD tests pass OK

Tried Boot record fix:
bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /fixboot
Then run Bootrec /rebuildBcd
No change

also recreated BCD fully following these steps ...

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

About all I can do is boot it up on VISTA disk .......... can I re-install OS without corrupting any stored mails /files ..........(most ‘should’ be on drv:1)
I assume doing that will lose me all my apps, even though installed on DRV:1 as registry will be lost.

If I will lose data on a re-install, can I backup data first ? ... not sure if VISTA disk has any such ‘hidden options’

I also have an iso image for the official windows repair disk if that is likely to be any better.

[Samaria]

I think that you will need to update the BIOS and see if that can solve the problem for you. Try with this and let us know if this was helpful to you or not.

[sargan]

I have checked I am on the latest ver of BIOS

Plus all optical drives and HDD's are on latest drivers

[cturboaddict]

Not to Hijack... But how do you know if you have the latest version of BIOS... And how do you update it?

(Im having the same problem, but I dont have a restore disk)
And im getting an error code
!! OxcO1aOO1d !!

[sargan]

On boot up .. it says the BIOS ver on screen.
I went to Dell drivers download site, and found that I had the latest BIOS version.

You can download a boot disk online, although I had original install disk .. I went for latest VISTA disk, to make sure it had latest code, diagnostics etc.

Another thing you can do is go to HDD manufacturer site and download the HDD boot disk image ... boot off that and carry out a full HDD diagnostics.