This morning my notebook refused to boot, hanging at the point where green bars go across a long rectangle with (C) Microsoft underneath it. It's an HP dv8000t (Dual Core 2500, 2gb RAM, 2 x 80GB HDD, 128MB GeForce Go 7600, 17" WSXGA+, DVD-RW, wifi and bluetooth, came with XP Media Center and I upgraded to Vista Home Premium). I tried booting in safe mode and it hung at crcdisk.sys. Google found many descriptions of this problem but none of the suggested solutions have worked. I called Microsoft but the only solution they could suggest was a clean reinstall.
Here's what I have tried:
Rebooting from install disk and repairing the install: says it can't repair the problem. It sometimes reports "Problem Signature 05: CorrupAcl" but can't fix it.
Via the advanced repair options, I used the memory diagnostic tool, no problems found
Disabled SATA in the bios, as suggested in some forums, but it made no difference.
Via advanced repair options I opened a command prompt and tried other solutions found on various forums. These involved deleting/renaming files and then repairing the install. Files I renamed were:
\windows\system32\drivers\pcmcia.sys
\windows\system32\drivers\1394bus.sys
\windows\system32\drivers\ohci1394.sys
\windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository\pcmcia.infblablabla
\windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository\1394.infblablabla
\windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository\sdbus.infblablabla
\windows\inf\sdbus.inf
\windows\inf\sdbus.PNF
That didn't help. None of the files were replaced by the repair, and it still froze on crcdisk.sys
I then tried renaming \Windows\system32\drivers\crcdisk.sys. Install repair did not restore this file but after this, safe mode boot would get to \Windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys before freezing. Normal boot would report that ecache.sys was a critical system file that was missing or corrupt. I tried renaming ecache.sys. The repair process replaced the file, but it was still reported as missing/corrupt.
At this point the only option seems to be a clean install. Fortunately I use a backup service which will send me all 80GB of personal files on DVDs for $40. Not the end of the world, but a bit inconvenient.
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Cheers,
Elizabeth
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