Boot critical file is corrupt: ...\drivers\ecache.sys

[Jon Abbott]

I've been using 5384 since it's release, quite happily. Not had a single
problem with it, other than the usual beta type issues. Until...

I was using my 2nd machine, Vista went to the screensaver, so I moved the mouse
to get it back. It had hung. I left it in that state for 10 mins to see if it
would come back, but it was completely dead. Having powered the machine off
and back on, I receive the following error at boot:

Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys is corrupt.

Fair enough, I figured powering it off probably caused that as nothing was
running on the machine at the time.

Here's the problem. You cannot restore that file. It's a boot critical file,
but there's no copy of it in the driver store or system volume information.
Booting from the Vista DVD and selecting Startup Repair also fails after
starting the repair because the file is missing.

What's worse, is it doesn't exist on the DVD either.

[Zack Whittaker]

It probably does - try finding the name of the file on the DVD but it might
be named as ecache.sy_ instead. Just copy and paste over, and remove the _
and put an "s" there instead.

Not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try!

--
Zack Whittaker
» ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk
» MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org
» Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk
» This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no
rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not
of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared
that up!

--: Original message follows :--
"Jon Abbott" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been using 5384 since it's release, quite happily. Not had a single
> problem with it, other than the usual beta type issues. Until...
>
> I was using my 2nd machine, Vista went to the screensaver, so I moved the
> mouse
> to get it back. It had hung. I left it in that state for 10 mins to see
> if it
> would come back, but it was completely dead. Having powered the machine
> off
> and back on, I receive the following error at boot:
>
> Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys is corrupt.
>
> Fair enough, I figured powering it off probably caused that as nothing was
> running on the machine at the time.
>
> Here's the problem. You cannot restore that file. It's a boot critical
> file,
> but there's no copy of it in the driver store or system volume
> information.
> Booting from the Vista DVD and selecting Startup Repair also fails after
> starting the repair because the file is missing.
>
> What's worse, is it doesn't exist on the DVD either.
>

[Jon Abbott]

"Zack Whittaker" <[email protected]> wrote:
>It probably does - try finding the name of the file on the DVD but it might
>be named as ecache.sy_ instead. Just copy and paste over, and remove the _
>and put an "s" there instead.
>
>Not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try!
>
>--
>> Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys is corrupt.
>>
>> Fair enough, I figured powering it off probably caused that as nothing was
>> running on the machine at the time.
>>
>> Here's the problem. You cannot restore that file. It's a boot critical
>> file,
>> but there's no copy of it in the driver store or system volume
>> information.
>> Booting from the Vista DVD and selecting Startup Repair also fails after
>> starting the repair because the file is missing.
>>
>> What's worse, is it doesn't exist on the DVD either.
>>

Well ahead of you! Already search all the usual Microsoft naming conventions.
It obviously is on the DVD, but it's not that obvious to find!

I've now retreived the file from another install of Vista.

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM]

"Zack Whittaker" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:ONWV%[email protected]...
> It probably does - try finding the name of the file on the DVD but it
> might be named as ecache.sy_ instead. Just copy and paste over, and remove
> the _ and put an "s" there instead.
>
> Not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try!


Doubt if that would work. ecache.sy_ has to be expanded to ecache.sys. I
haven't found an easy way to do that in Vista yet.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM
Please reply in newsgroup.

[Sean McLeod]

expand.exe, comes with the OS.

"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Zack Whittaker" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:ONWV%[email protected]...
>> It probably does - try finding the name of the file on the DVD but it
>> might be named as ecache.sy_ instead. Just copy and paste over, and
>> remove the _ and put an "s" there instead.
>>
>> Not sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try!
>
>
> Doubt if that would work. ecache.sy_ has to be expanded to ecache.sys. I
> haven't found an easy way to do that in Vista yet.
>
> --
> Frank Saunders, MS-MVP, OE/WM
> Please reply in newsgroup.
>

[Chad Harris]

Jon--

This sounds like a prime case for using Win RE--the new feature utility in
Vista--the Windows Repair Environment. Man oh man Mr. Abbot you sure did
cross post in a truck load of them groups. Last time I tried that Sam
White, Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates' favorite key note
presentation partner Queen Latifah came lookin' for me in an Ice Cream wagon
and I had to hide in some alleys. Ah never knew they had so many of them
groups as I see up here listed. It makes that little space downright fat!

There is a promising "feature" or utility in Vista called Win RE or Windows
Recovery Environment. Unfortunately, MSFT has published ***no information
on
it on their site,*** so that if Vista evokes a metaphor of a broad horizon,
they are encouraging you to explore many of the features in it by flying by
the seat of your pants.

What that means in the real world all you Softies is you have scores of
people who need to use the tool, being told anything but information about
the tool, because you haven't gotten off your slow butts and written up a
decent article on Technet or MSDN on Win RE even though you employ a slew of
technical writers on the Vista teams who are supposed to be doing this. If
I were a PM at MSFT, I wouldn't dream of releasing Vista to the public
without having given them one molecule of instruction on how to repair the
operating system with new tools. What kind of consideration for your
customers does that show???????? Absolutely none!!!

It may be that the missing corrupt system file feature is not up and running
in Beta 2. I could tell you more accurately if I could find any information
from MSFT or anywhere else on Win RE.

Win RE can be launched directly from the installation media that MSFT says
it will mail out to people in a few weeks. If you burn the ISO, Win RE can
be launched directly from it. It fixed a registry corruption caused by the
erratic damaging SFC (SystemFile Checker) that the developers and PMS on the
Vista team have crafted for Vista. This tool is targeting fixing corrupt
drivers, registry corruption, drivers and that are not compatible with
your
hardware, and OS upgrades that are unstable and crash with BSOD stop
errors, and a few other no start problems that will be elucidated when and
if someone from MSFT ever rights an intelligent article on this feature.
In other words, they turned Vista loose on the public without explaining
many of its features, includingthe ones that are designed to save your OS.
I consider saving the OS a fairly important priority. It's hard for me to
discern what priority MSFT gives it.

***Accessing Windows RE (Repair Environment):***

1) Insert Media into PC

2) You will see on the Vista logo setup screen after lang. options in the
lower left corner, a link called "System Recovery Options."

3) Select your OS for repair.

4) Its been my experience that you can see some causes of the crash from the
Win RE feature, but as is SOP with errors from Windows, most of them are
written in unintelligible encrypted language, hex or otherwise, that are
often metastatically and ectopically scattered to the four corners of the
operating system. They also have cute names like Sometimes at least one of
them is in English.

5) Just as they did with XP, MSFT will make promises that OEM partitions and
Recovery Discs will access Win RE. I've had seven years to realize that's
not true; and you have six more years to understand it's not true in Vista.
If you pluck down your hard earned money to the large OEM companies for a
machine, insist that they fund an OEM retail DVD so that you will be able to
access Win RE when Vista RTMs. MSFT is ensuring this won't happen, as are
the OEMs because the two entitties can't cooperate on a price point to
deliver customers the Recovery tools that they are making in Vista that they
need. Corporate customers may have customized solutions in the context of
Win RE, but all those teenyboopers using PCs in the MSFT ads that will
trumpet Vista aren't corporate customers if I understand what Gartner calls
a corporation/enterprise accurately.

5) MSFT will always issue some reflex aphorism like "OEMs are encouraged to
provide the media" and I offer you as prime evidence of the efficacy of MSFT
encouragement 7 years of XP and its Beta where I've fixed 1000 no start XP's
and hidden and unhidden partitions from large so-called OEM named partners
have been over 99% ineffective.

*Ask anyone who signs such a statement if they will go on prime time TV
trying to access Win RE with a standard OEM recovery disc or partition.*
Don't expect the silence to ever be broken. Don't expect anyone from MSFT
to jump in here or anywhere else and say "Hell yes those OEM discs will
access Win RE." They know a lot better. They know the truth and silence
underscores that they do. If they think diffently, let's see Stevie Ballmer
dance on in here and say so.

Truth in advertising would be a polished statement like "Hey Yo Customers.
We know you're buying OEM pre-installed Vista. But listen up, because if
you want effective access to our spiffy new recovery feature, you had better
get your hands on a retailed DVD. Are we requiring you to purchase Vista
twice (preinstalled and a retailed DVD? You bet your little round start
button we are." Don't expectWegner-Edstrom or any companies hired to do the
"Vista in Every Pot in
countries where no PC is left behind the migration ad campaign" to advertise
with this kind of clarity and transparency. It's my experience if you want
to make a room full of softies very quiet, ask them about the ability of OEM
tools to handle no boots and what the success rate is. Most of the softies
don't have a lot of experience with no boots,and when they do, they know the
truth and they have tons of their own media free anyway.

What would change this is if everyone purchasing an OEM computer simply
insist to the sales person, that they won't spend their hundreds or
thousands of dollars unless they get a genuine MSFT Retail DVD with that
very expensive machine. What would be interesting is if the OEM VP of MSFT
would post precisely what code is given over to the OEMs to make these half
baked not even capable of being a frissbee Recovery CDs or what goes into a
so called and classic oxymoron of a name "recovery partitions."

When you realize that the MSFT OEM VP is an accountant from Price Waterhouse
with no background in computer software engineering, it gets very easy to
understand what is going on in the 3 Card Monte Shell Game where MSFT tells
you their OEM partners are "encouraged to provide access to their Recovery
tools like Win RE." It is time that the Vista PMs stood up to these
accountants who block delivery of their software to a prospective/projected
500 million OEM non enterprise customers and insisted that their product get
delivered to customers. But often a backbone is a very difficult thing to
find at Redmond. Gates, Ballmer, Sinofsky, Allchin and Chris Jones,
Corporate VP Windows Client Core Development should proudly stand up and
brag that they are delivering the full panopoly of their software recovery
mechanisms to OEM customers but they won't and they can't right now because
they aren't.

Good luck,

CH










"Jon Abbott" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been using 5384 since it's release, quite happily. Not had a single
> problem with it, other than the usual beta type issues. Until...
>
> I was using my 2nd machine, Vista went to the screensaver, so I moved the
> mouse
> to get it back. It had hung. I left it in that state for 10 mins to see
> if it
> would come back, but it was completely dead. Having powered the machine
> off
> and back on, I receive the following error at boot:
>
> Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys is corrupt.
>
> Fair enough, I figured powering it off probably caused that as nothing was
> running on the machine at the time.
>
> Here's the problem. You cannot restore that file. It's a boot critical
> file,
> but there's no copy of it in the driver store or system volume
> information.
> Booting from the Vista DVD and selecting Startup Repair also fails after
> starting the repair because the file is missing.
>
> What's worse, is it doesn't exist on the DVD either.
>

[Ron Rector]

Doing a search on my machine came up with a copy in the \windows\sxs directory.

Havent found a way to extract/expand from install.wim.

"Jon Abbott" wrote:

> I've been using 5384 since it's release, quite happily. Not had a single
> problem with it, other than the usual beta type issues. Until...
>
> I was using my 2nd machine, Vista went to the screensaver, so I moved the mouse
> to get it back. It had hung. I left it in that state for 10 mins to see if it
> would come back, but it was completely dead. Having powered the machine off
> and back on, I receive the following error at boot:
>
> Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys is corrupt.
>
> Fair enough, I figured powering it off probably caused that as nothing was
> running on the machine at the time.
>
> Here's the problem. You cannot restore that file. It's a boot critical file,
> but there's no copy of it in the driver store or system volume information.
> Booting from the Vista DVD and selecting Startup Repair also fails after
> starting the repair because the file is missing.
>
> What's worse, is it doesn't exist on the DVD either.
>
>

[eunix]

Direct copy of the ecache.sys file from another systems did not work.
This file has to be part of the Vista distribution and should be able to
be extracted from the source files.

Does anyone know how to extract/expand this file from the source files?


--
eunix

[Darrell Gorter[MSFT]]

Hello Eunix,
This article shows an exmaple of how to copy files from the DVD to replace
one specific file
You would need to modify the steps for ecache.sys
942968 Stop error when you try to download updates from Windows Update on a
computer that is running Windows Vista: "0x80070246"
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;942968


Thanks,
Darrell Gorter[MSFT]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
--------------------
| >From: eunix <[email protected]>
| >Subject: Re: Boot critical file is corrupt: ...\drivers\ecache.sys
| >Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:58:28 -0600
| >Message-ID: <[email protected]>
| >Organization: Forums
| >User-Agent: vBulletin USENET gateway
| >X-Newsreader: vBulletin USENET gateway
| >X-Originating-IP: 74.224.180.222
| >References: <[email protected]>
| >Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
| >NNTP-Posting-Host: vistax64.com 74.86.192.138
| >Lines: 1
| >Path: TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP01.phx.gbl!TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl
| >Xref: TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl
microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management:15212
| >X-Tomcat-NG: microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
| >
| >
Direct copy of the ecache.sys file from another systems did not work.
This file has to be part of the Vista distribution and should be able to
be extracted from the source files.

Does anyone know how to extract/expand this file from the source files?


--
eunix
| >

[eunix]

I did resolve the problem last night and was able to get the system
booted.
The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the
system: (01) Installed Vista Ultimate x64 of a secondary machine
(AMD Athlon 64 laptop)

(02) Installed Vista SP1 on the secondary machine.

(03) Copied the \windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys file to a thumb
drive(*Note:* File size after SP1 install was 151 K).
(04) Booted the ailing machine from a Vista Ultimate x64 DVD

(05) Launched the repair option and let the attempt another automatic
repair.

(06) Attempted a standard reboot after the repair but the system failed
again.

(07) Rebooted the system again and exercised the repair option again.

(08) After the repair attempt completed, I closed the window and opened
a command shell.

(09) Performed an *XCOPY {USB THUMB DRIVE}\ecache.sys
c:\windows\system32\drivers *command

(10) Rebooted the machine again.

(11) The machine took longer than usual to boot and notified me that
system restore had rolled back the system to a previous date.

(12) I rebooted again and the shut down took a real long time...(I
almost powered the machine off because I thought that it was hung). It
rebooted again and I am not doing analysis on the machine.
*Note :* -I am not sure if an automatic update corrupted the
file but I think the restore roll back was a good thing to have done.
It appears that the original attempt to replace the file came from a 32
bit version of Vista Ultimate which was unrecognized by the system and
there is a difference between the file sized for pre and post SP1
versions of the file.-


--
eunix

[alicat~]

lHelp Please! I have a preinstalled version of vista on my laptop. No
hardcopies or cds. I have run startup repair and it says I have a boot
critical file corrupt, and it cannot be fixed. I have an error code of 0x2.
Please anything to help would be useful! Can I get this file from microsoft
to replace?

"eunix" wrote:

>
> I did resolve the problem last night and was able to get the system
> booted.
> The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the
> system: (01) Installed Vista Ultimate x64 of a secondary machine
> (AMD Athlon 64 laptop)
>
> (02) Installed Vista SP1 on the secondary machine.
>
> (03) Copied the \windows\system32\drivers\ecache.sys file to a thumb
> drive(*Note:* File size after SP1 install was 151 K).
> (04) Booted the ailing machine from a Vista Ultimate x64 DVD
>
> (05) Launched the repair option and let the attempt another automatic
> repair.
>
> (06) Attempted a standard reboot after the repair but the system failed
> again.
>
> (07) Rebooted the system again and exercised the repair option again.
>
> (08) After the repair attempt completed, I closed the window and opened
> a command shell.
>
> (09) Performed an *XCOPY {USB THUMB DRIVE}\ecache.sys
> c:\windows\system32\drivers *command
>
> (10) Rebooted the machine again.
>
> (11) The machine took longer than usual to boot and notified me that
> system restore had rolled back the system to a previous date.
>
> (12) I rebooted again and the shut down took a real long time...(I
> almost powered the machine off because I thought that it was hung). It
> rebooted again and I am not doing analysis on the machine.
> *Note :* -I am not sure if an automatic update corrupted the
> file but I think the restore roll back was a good thing to have done.
> It appears that the original attempt to replace the file came from a 32
> bit version of Vista Ultimate which was unrecognized by the system and
> there is a difference between the file sized for pre and post SP1
> versions of the file.-
>
>
> --
> eunix
>

[R. C. White]

Hi, alicat~.

A good start would be to tell us the make and model of your laptop. Also,
how recently did you purchase it? In other words, might it still be in
warranty?

And I've deleted the prior posts, since your "Reply" had nothing to do with
those, except possibly the title. Your best chance for a good answer here
would be to post a NEW message - and include at least a minimal description
of your computer.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
[email protected]
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000

"alicat~" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> lHelp Please! I have a preinstalled version of vista on my laptop. No
> hardcopies or cds. I have run startup repair and it says I have a boot
> critical file corrupt, and it cannot be fixed. I have an error code of
> 0x2.
> Please anything to help would be useful! Can I get this file from
> microsoft
> to replace?