Unable to boot - Safe Mode stops after crcdisk.sys

Hi,

I just wanted to thank the person who wrote this reply. It was spot on. The Windows Vista recovery software from neosmart.net is an excellent tool for such situation indeed. It not only helped me restart my Windows Vista laptop, but it settled many problems with the system registry and the Master Boot Record file too.

Please let me share my story briefly. I had this Compaq CQ60 laptop running for 8 years now on Windows Vista Home Basic edition. I don't know whether I'm lucky or not, but, really, this laptop had never ever had any problem whatsoever !! It became a bit slow lately, naturally because of aging. And I started to use specialized software for disk management and defragmentation (Diskeeper from Condusiv Technologies; try it out, people !!). It again became flawless as ever. But somehow, it remained too slow while booting up. So, I started to use the "Selective Boot" option from msconfig.

While it did speed up my laptop while booting, it made some services and processes wildly unpredictable. Google Chrome or Opera browser took forever to start; the antivirus (I use Avast Premier) took too long to perform quick-scan; all the media player started playing after unusually long delays and the display driver started to stop many times while playing high-definition videos. Recently, when I updated my antivirus to the latest version and performed a registry check, boom, the laptop restarted with a black command-prompt like screen stating that I need to insert my Windows Vista DVD in the DVD drive and click repair upon restarting again.

I did not have that dvd as it has been 8 years !!! I forgot when did see that DVD last time !! Well, and yes, I did NOT have a back-up of the data on this laptop. Despite this being my primary system, I could not do it after umpteen reminders. The mere thought of losing all the data gave me goosebumps. Every time I tried to start in safe mode and all those other options in F8 menu, the boot process came to a grinding halt on crcdisksys check. Then I started to use a live Ubuntu USB drive and found that there is no hardware fault in the laptop. (The latest version of Ubuntu 16.04.1 runs flawlessly if your machine has the requisite hardware !! Give it a try !!) I desperately looked on the web for solutions; fortunately, I stumbled upon this live-windows forum and found out this 6-year-old reply for the same problem.

I checked on the Neosmart website and purchased the software immediately, installed the software in a DVD using an iso burner, and booted my laptop from it. It repaired the MBR and bootloader, but the system again failed to load Windows after restarting. So I booted the laptop again on the recovery DVD and this time done a system restore on last known good configuration (this option is also available). This time, the system booted for very long and after usual disk-checking on drive C, it started with a "restart now" dialog box open in it. Everything else was fine except that dialog box. I checked my data and it was all right. So I restarted it and it again failed to start, and now, with a blue screen of death.

But this time, I knew that the recovery software had solved the problem because the system did boot once and began functioning. This blue screen was certainly for some registry error during that previous little run. So either I could restart the system and run it on Safe mode to load all the necessary drivers and services, or I could again reboot the system on the recovery DVD and repair the registry. I chose the later one. Because I thought that this might recover or repair all of my corrupted registries.

And guess what, that choice turned out to be very effective. Not only this time my system booted smoothly, it took less time too. The response time of the system noticeably improved from recent past. All programs ran markedly faster, including the browsers and media players. I only had to reinstall the antivirus and a couple of other Softwares as they were uninstalled or not functioning due to registry change. And, boy, did they run faster this time !!

So, all in all, I sincerely thank the Windows live forum, the person who posted this reply ("A. User"), and all those  16 people who recommended this solution as "helpful" before me. Thanks a lot !!!

Warm regards,

Sudip.

Calcutta, India.

(******@gmail.com)

yes I agree, all that and it does not relate to the problem,  the computer will not start so how is a person supposed to do half the stuff,  a useless fix by useless MS

I believe you hit on your issue.

replace your memory sticks.  Make sure the ones you put in are the proper speed as in the PC's specs.

This is a crazy thing that happens.  I have gone down the list many times with this crcdisk.exe, failure.  What fixes it every time is to pull the RAM out of the computer and put it back in again.  High Tech solution for an issue no one seems to understand or provide a permanent fix.  "Elbow Windows Tech Support"

Window 2008 Standard SP2

SuperMicro

Hi There,

The default bios settings is often triggered by the motherboard battery getting a bit tired.

Especially if the machine has been off an unplugged for a few days.  This can happen if the "Power Police" turn off everything at the wall socket. While the machine is off at the wall the bios settings are maintained by the battery.  While the mains power is connected even with the machine turned off the battery is not used so will last years longer.

Desktops batteries are usually fairly easy to replace with a clearly visible coin sized battery on the Motherboard.

Notebooks a little harder depending on the model and your skill levels as you have to get the case apart and the batteries are not always standard sizes.

Glad you got your machine going again.

David