Hello,
I have a huge help request, my hp m7760n media center pc seems to have a problem today and I have no idea what caused it.

The system runs Vista Home Premium and has 2 gig of memory, and overall is a zippy little computer here for me.

I was using it last night everything 100% normal and fine, no hardware or software installed or removed lately, overall its been running pretty solid for me here.

Yet this morning I went to turn it on and get to work here and I am stuck, it goes thru the normal start up blue splash screen from HP, then it appears to be booting up (Microsoft Corporation black screen with the progress moving bar), then all the sudden vs showing my desktop it jumps to a blue screen of death (that only stays up for about 3 seconds) so I can't read it even. UGHHH

I see at the bottom of that screen really fast it says
Dumping physical memory goes from 0-100 and it goes back to the HP blue spash screen, and I see a windows error recovery screen with 2 options

Launch start up repair (recommended)
start windows normally

I tried start windows normally like 5x no go, so i tried launch start up repair and I then see the normal black Microsoft Corporation progress bar screen again, then startup repair searches for system problems to try and fix them automatically, (that goes nowhere, 4x so far it always ends saying cant fix problem). BUT on that screen it gives me an option of sending the info to Microsoft or not, I have tried both ways (no solution offered when trying to send to Microsoft) but there is a problem details menu that shows

Problem Event Name StartupRepairV2
Problem Signatureormal 1 AutoFailover
Problem Signature 2 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6000.16386
Problem Signature 3 5
Problem Signature 4 589833
Problem Signature 5 BadDriver
Problem Signature 6 CorruptVolume
Problem Signature 7 0
Problem Signature 8 1
Problem Signature 9 Chkdsk
Problem Signature 10 0
OS Version 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Local ID 1033

That is about the only clue I have to go by here so far, maybe some driver has become corrupt? (prob sig 5)

So at this point my options are advanced system recovery options,

at this point it asks me to log on, and i see these options

Startup Repair (tried this like 4x so far says cant auto fix problem)

System Restore (tried this on all available showing backup dates, each one ends as a failure to back up to that point).

Windows Complete PC Restore (says no valid backup locations can be found), umm my D drive is a partition I know is recovery for vista so this concerns and confuses me a bit...but I do recall making restore discs gotta dig them out I guess but wasnt sure if I would lose all my desktop stuff too doing this...

Windows Memory Diagnostics Tool ran it everything showed fine

Command Prompt didnt mess in here wouldn't know what to do or look for really anyways...

Restore Application I wasnt sure on this so didnt do it either, thinking again I will lose everything if i do this right?



I do have some files and stuff on that desktop I am hoping I can at least save, heck never thought it wouldn't start today for me here.

Guess this is the ultimate lesson in how important it is to back things up....

Sorry for the long message here just trying to include everything I could think of.

I opened the case and made sure all cards were seated fully and even tried unplugging all the extras via usb (external hard drive, camera base, card reader etc) still no go...

Just not sure where or what to do next but sure hope I can get this at least back on and working soon vs losing it all.

Bill

Command Prompt try chkdsk /r


Otherwise this via a MS MVP:

Vista doesn't have a recovery console similar to the one in XP. The windows
Vista DVD is bootable and you have 'repair' options. These allow you access
to the command prompt, system restore, memeory diagnostics and access to the
complete pc backup which allows you to re-imagwe your drive from backup DVDs
or hard drive you created using the windows Vista backup application.
Unfortunately you don't have a repair install option. So if yuo don't create
a backup image using the Window Vista backup application, should something
go radically wrong you are foreced to completely re-install the operating
system all over again.
For a little more information visit my website http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Click ont he Vista Faq tab and then look at questions 51 and 52

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

Thanks for the reply ended up having to insert and reload using the recovery discs, before I did this it asked if I wanted to back up my music, documents, video files etc, i chose YES and picked an external usb drive to store them to.

I see the folder it says backupdrive and its 12.5 GIG so it must have some of my stuff in it but I can't see anything in the folder and am not exactly sure how to get the backed up files OUT of that folder back onto my C drive.

Will mess with that tomorrow I guess, lots of docs and pics i hope i didnt lose forever, if i can get that backup working im gonna be burning some serious discs tomorrow, its 215am tho and im wiped out messing with this thing all darn day today but at least I am back online and up and going again....

Crossing fingers tomorrow I can figure out that folder called backupfiles since its 12.5 gig theres gotta be something there (most likely hidden files) cuz when i go in by default i see nothing......

Bill

well that screen means that it wasnt reading a driver. It has happened alot to me, it would load the necassary drivers for windows to boot, that way you would be able to figure out if it was a driver issue. So im not to sure if i understood you correctly but you were not able to backup your files? But if you ran a recovery you got everything going again.

The backup needs to be restored. It did not simply copy your files but created a backup to be restored.

There is most likely a single .bks file holding all your data.

What is your exact HP model?

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

We can find the instructions for backup recovery from their web site.

Originally Posted by jakeyeager

well that screen means that it wasnt reading a driver. It has happened alot to me, it would load the necassary drivers for windows to boot, that way you would be able to figure out if it was a driver issue. So im not to sure if i understood you correctly but you were not able to backup your files? But if you ran a recovery you got everything going again.

i meant to add that if you run it in safe mode and it loads up correctly, then it is a driver malfunction. When you boot a computer into safe mode, it loads the necassary drivers that it needs to run. So post back with all the new info you have got for us, thank you.

Hey guys sorry i didnt reply sooner, usually im pretty good following up if I fixed or found a solution, i did visit an hp forum and learned how to get that backup info finally into a basic file form so i could sift thru it and grab my docs and such, and I HAVE been burning a few discs since then of backing stuff up and just sticking that into our lockbox safe with our other important paperwork so at least I have learned that much out of all this

I did realize it was a driver that had failed from the brief bit i could read before the screen would go out on me, but wasn't able to get the computer to start in safe mode either, so once i did the backup thing using the hp restore discs to bring it to day one was in a way refreshing too, got rid of lots of things I didnt use after trying, just in general felt like starting over, beyond setting up some basic stuff i did have all my files to access off that backup so it wasnt too hard to get back upto speed.

Thanks again for all the input and help to everyone here, hopefully as I go along I might even be able to chime in with help for others too once i see a subject i have some experience with.

Bill

Your welcome. One of the most important qualities of a pc tech, is their quality to research. We're glad to have helped you with you pc problem.


jake