Unable to boot - Safe Mode stops after crcdisk.sys

I have already tried using a boot disk to do a startup repair and it did not work.  The startup repair runs and says issues are fixed, but windows still stalls after a hard disk boot.  I have already purchased another hard drive and reinstalled windows and my machine is up and running again, so it is either the windows software or a failing disk.  Like I said before, though, I am able to read information off of the old disk.  Thank you for your help though, and I would welcome any other suggestions on how to get the old drive up and running.

Hi R-Ptaz,

There can be many reasons this error happens including disk corruption, some driver issues and

others.

Since you have 12 machines all with the same issue it sure sounds like a malware attack in your case.

It is possible that a driver up from Windows Update, an automatic updating program such as some

System makers load, or even antivirus/antispyware/security updates causes a driver corruption.

It could have been malware just waiting for an Update to attack or even a reboot to attack.

Certainly would do an intensive check for malware and then a format Clean install after backing up

any important data off the machine.

Please post back any feedback you can.

Rob Brown - MS MVP - Windows Desktop Experience : Bicycle - Mark Twain said it right.

Hi Patrick Menge,

Try Startup Repair from the Recovery Console (if you have one) or from a Vista disk - if you do not

have a Vista disk you can borrow a friends (they are not copy protected) or make one. Also your

System maker will sell the physical disks cheap since you already own Windows.

This tells you how to access the System Recovery Options and/or with a Vista Disk

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/326b756b-1601-435e-99d0-1585439470351033.mspx

Try StartUp Repair from Recovery Options and/or a Vista disk.

How to do a Startup Repair

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/91467-startup-repair.html

Also from the Command Prompt of Recovery or a Vista disk :

chkdsk /f /r

(there are spaces after k and before /   and after f and before / )

=======================================

If you need to make repair disks - these help repair Windows not re-install.

How to Make a Bootable Disk in Vista

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/7050.aspx

Download: Windows Vista x86 32 bit Recovery Disc

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/download-windows-vista-x64-recovery-disc/

Download: Windows Vista x64 64 bit Recovery Disc

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/download-windows-vista-x64-recovery-disc/

How to Make a Windows Vista Repair Disk If You Don’t Have One

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-make-a-windows-vista-repair-disk-if-you-dont-have-one/

If needed :

Check Andy Song's solution here :

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistasetup/thread/86ef2cea-808a-40ec-bc30-7a426577f48d

Check the solutions in this search for the crcdisk.sys error

http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&q=crcdisk.sys

Hope this helps.

Rob Brown - MS MVP - Windows Desktop Experience : Bicycle - Mark Twain said it right.

I have pulled out the "defective" hard drive and connected it as a secondary drive to another computer.  By doing this I am able to read all of the information on the hard drive.  That makes me think it is something in the windows software as well.  I didn't think my computer had a trojan at the time it went down, as I quite frequently check for them, but I guess you never know for sure.  If you are able to find an answer to the problem, I would really like to know.

I beg to differ.  This problem is not hardware it is software. I am trying to repair 12 laptops that all went down with this problem at the same time. System hangs on startup, forever and SafeMode shows the hang after crcdisk.sys loads. The crcdisk.sys is the cause of hard drive corruption (mbr and others), however, the driver that has been corrupted and is the initial sickness I have not yet identified.  Apparently caused by a Microsoft update installed on a system infected by some trojan, judging from most of the info I have gathered over the past few days.