Vista fdisk/Bootloader...start-up problems/messages....

DerMerovingian · 02-09-2007

Forgive me if i'm not in the right place and please don't flame.

I am running Vista Ultimate on my iMac, (yes i know...a Mac, but i don't
want to mave around 2 PC's, i prefer one that does both for work and
personal use) using bootcamp and all works fine.
The other day, i booted back into Windows and for a few seconds lots of
messages referring to "fdisk" and "Vista loader v 2.1.2" and other message
i'll call jibberish (at least to me) appeared. They went away and Vista
loaded fine after that.

Now i recall encountering this same thing when i had installed Vista on my
iMac previously during the beta ages ago and after doing a search on Yahoo,
i had come across something i downloaded that fixed the "bootloader" or
start-up issue. I can't seem to remember what it was, but it had something
to do with fixing the errors one gets when dual booting with Vista.

I searched on the web and i am not sure what resource to go with as all the
search results point to something different.

Any help is appreciated.

Andrew McLaren · 02-09-2007

No problem here, I'm thinking of getting a Mac for my next PC and running
Bootcamp (and Mac OS X too, of course).

As far as I can tell, this message does not come from any of the Vista
files. Vista itself does not contain the string "Vista loader" and certainly
not in a "version 2.1.2". That leaves 2 possibilities -

- the error is coming from Bootcamp. In this case, you would probably get
better results asking in a Bootcamp user forum, such as
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1165

- "Vista Loader v2.1.2" is the name of a well-known crack, to run unlicensed
versions of Vista. See for example
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/0...oftmod-update/.
If you happen to be running this or similar crack (by no means confirmed,
purely from the error message; but if you are ...) then you would be
strictly on your own, and you would deserve every problem you get.

But overall, I'm thinking it may be a Bootcamp error message. So you'll get
better results if you ask in the Bootcamp forum. In terms of utilities to
download, perhaps you downloaded EasyBCD from
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 ???

If you can actually get into Windows, install EasyBCD , then run it, and
click on the "Manage Bootloader" tab; click on "Write MBR" and reboot.

Hope it helps,

DerMerovingian · 02-09-2007

I'm very sorry, you're right. I must have mistaken the error message itself
regarding "vista loader v 2.1". It appeared for a quick moment and i seemed
to remember something vaguely resembling that and "fdisk" being needed to be
run and so forth. I got Vista from work, so i have to assume it is legit.

I did try Apple discussions, actually that was my first port of call, but no
help.

Ah ha, rings a bell now, EasyBCD. I'll try it then.