Vista stalls and reboots at expanding files prompt

[fyremoon]

I have a customer's machine on the slab that had a corrupted copy of Vista installed on it and tried every rescue technique I could find (Vista recovery DVD, XP CD, WinPE and a few others) finally using Linux to backup the customer's files.

Installing from an OEM copy of Vista seems to be problematic at best, it stalled at 23% then rebooted, so I repaired the drive in XP and got to 56% before the reboot. So I nuked the drive with a slow format in XP and then it got to 70% before rebooting.

It sounds like hard drive related but the customer's video card fan had dropped off so I suspect it may also be a heat related issue.

Does anyone else have any ideas for the reboots?

"fyremoon" <fyremoon.3nmh0f@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote in message
news:fyremoon.3nmh0f@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com...
>
> I have a customer's machine on the slab that had a corrupted copy of
> Vista installed on it and tried every rescue technique I could find
> (Vista recovery DVD, XP CD, WinPE and a few others) finally using Linux
> to backup the customer's files.
>
> Installing from an OEM copy of Vista seems to be problematic at best,
> it stalled at 23% then rebooted, so I repaired the drive in XP and got
> to 56% before the reboot. So I nuked the drive with a slow format in XP
> and then it got to 70% before rebooting.
>
> It sounds like hard drive related but the customer's video card fan had
> dropped off so I suspect it may also be a heat related issue.
>
> Does anyone else have any ideas for the reboots?
>
>


Yes a hot video card sure can be the cause of a reboot...
I'd put it back before you fry the card if you have not done so already.

Also in order, the mfg's harddrive diagnostic

and a RAM test

If I understand this post you are charging a customer to fix a computer with
what should be very clear algorithms for identifying what seems like an
easily defined problem but you don't know what those are and are asking for
advice on this newsgroup.
Did you used to be a mortgage broker or financial advisor?
Politician?

[fyremoon]

I've changed the video card as being the first thing I did. I did suggest the customer take it back to where they bought it from, but they would have lost all the customer's data.

I'm sorely tempted to blame the mobo, since an overheated graphics card may be a hint that the board has warped.

semoi, are you a politician or just a troll?

[fyremoon]

I ran diagnostics on both the hard drive and memory but both came back fine.
I tried a different Power supply so I'm suspecting the motherboard. Its an ECS 945P M3 but if the GFX card cooked, it could have done the same to the board.

"fyremoon" <fyremoon.3nnecf@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote in message
news:fyremoon.3nnecf@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com...
>
> I ran diagnostics on both the hard drive and memory but both came back
> fine.
> I tried a different Power supply so I'm suspecting the motherboard. Its
> an ECS 945P M3 but if the GFX card cooked, it could have done the same
> to the board.
>
>

I've never seen a cooked video card take out a mobo.

It could be a faulty DVD rom/burner too

I'm having almost the same problem. I attempted a clean install and it goes
all the way to completing the installation and then it hangs up. I'm
assuming it's the HDD, but it and the RAM have passed diagnostics. I've
taken the Vista Install Disk out when it hangs and it still runs like the
disk is still in. Am I being impatient? I let it run 3 hrs yesterday with
no joy. HELP!!! Oh it's a Dell Inspiron 1720

"fyremoon" wrote:

>
> I have a customer's machine on the slab that had a corrupted copy of
> Vista installed on it and tried every rescue technique I could find
> (Vista recovery DVD, XP CD, WinPE and a few others) finally using Linux
> to backup the customer's files.
>
> Installing from an OEM copy of Vista seems to be problematic at best,
> it stalled at 23% then rebooted, so I repaired the drive in XP and got
> to 56% before the reboot. So I nuked the drive with a slow format in XP
> and then it got to 70% before rebooting.
>
> It sounds like hard drive related but the customer's video card fan had
> dropped off so I suspect it may also be a heat related issue.
>
> Does anyone else have any ideas for the reboots?
>
>
> --
> fyremoon
> Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com
>
>

How much memory is fitted? There could be problems with installing RTM
Vista on some boards if more than 2GB was installed.


fyremoon wrote:
> I have a customer's machine on the slab that had a corrupted copy of
> Vista installed on it and tried every rescue technique I could find
> (Vista recovery DVD, XP CD, WinPE and a few others) finally using Linux
> to backup the customer's files.
>
> Installing from an OEM copy of Vista seems to be problematic at best,
> it stalled at 23% then rebooted, so I repaired the drive in XP and got
> to 56% before the reboot. So I nuked the drive with a slow format in XP
> and then it got to 70% before rebooting.
>
> It sounds like hard drive related but the customer's video card fan had
> dropped off so I suspect it may also be a heat related issue.
>
> Does anyone else have any ideas for the reboots?
>
>

[fyremoon]

It was the motherboard!

Why can't Vista die with an error message rather than silently reboot?

Hi, fyremoon.

Vista (like WinXP and other Windows versions) is set by default to
"Automatically restart" on "System failure". But, just like other Windows
versions, this can easily be changed by the user.

It's an easy fix at the end of a long mouse-click path:
Start | Control Panel | System | Advanced system settings (You'll need to
furnish Administrator credentials to get past here.) | Startup and Recovery
/ Settings. (Note that you can get to the System Properties page quickly by
just pressing Start + Break.)

When you finally get here, just remove the check from Automatically restart,
under System failure. Then OK your way back out to the Desktop.

Next time, you'll still get the BSOD, but this time, it will stay onscreen
forever - or at least until you press the hardware Reset button. This will
give you plenty of time to write down the Stop Code, including any text and
probably 4 strings of hexadecimal numbers. Post those VERBATIM here and one
of the true gurus (not ME!) will be able to interpret them for you and point
you in the right direction.

Actual hardware errors, including motherboard faults, often don't produce a
BSOD. But those are hardware problems that neither Vista nor any other
operating system can fix.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000

"fyremoon" <fyremoon.3nq0sc@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote in message
news:fyremoon.3nq0sc@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com...
>
> It was the motherboard!
>
> Why can't Vista die with an error message rather than silently reboot?
>
>
> --
> fyremoon