Unable to boot - Safe Mode stops after crcdisk.sys

Still works fine! :o)

It is/was a fista-software problem not a hardware problem. =^..^=

As I m mentioned before I just did a clean install since I hadn't no m ore time for investigating this further since it is a software problem.

The new installation still works fine. The HDD is OK. No bad sectors etc. It just work fine. I assume that a (system) driver needed for accessing the HDD was corrupted and since SFC etc. not worked I did the clean install.

The clean installation also solved lot of other problems I had with Fista Ultimate (32bit) ;-)

Maybe I do a upgrade to Windows 7 in the near future ... But not I just not touch/change the running system ;-)

Hi hfrmobile,

Those seem to be symptoms of drive corruption or even failure so start keeping good redundant

backups. If it is the drive it can sometimes be corrected however that may not last and I would

consider the drive unreliable. Sure there are a few cases where the drive lasted a long time just

not a high percentage of those with the issue.

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This is my latest troubleshooter which may help :

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 / )

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

 CheckDisk fails to complete as above :

(The old 302602 links is not valid now for the diagnostic links.)

Diagnostic Utilities By Manufacturer - run the one for your hard drive

http://www.techsupportforum.com/hardware-support/hard-drive-support/462298-no-ide-device-found.html

Corrected list as of 6-09-2010

Fujitsu Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here

http://www.fujitsu.com/emea/products/hdd/

Hitachi Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here

http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/

IBM Hard Drives: Use Hitachi Utilities*

Toshiba Hard Drives: Use Hitachi or Maxtor Utilities

Maxtor Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here (now SeaGate)

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/

Quantum Hard Drives: Use Maxtor Utilities

Seagate Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads

Conner Hard Drives: Use Seagate Utilities

Samsung Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/

Western Digital Hard Drives: Diagnostic Utilities Here

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en

The trial versions of one of these "might" help.

SpeedFan

http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

HD Tune

http://www.hdtune.com/

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

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

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You can save your files by putting the drive in another computer as 2nd drive (best) or an External

USB drive case and then backing them up to removable media such as CD, DVD, or other USB drives. 

Of course a real computer shop or your System maker can help recover the files.

Or you could use an Ubuntu boot CD to back up the data.

Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer

Hope this helps.

OK, finally I was able to boot in safe mode (msconfig / Diagnostic startup) - Someone mentioned it that "safe boot" does not work with F8 or F12 but with msconfig. Thank you!

So I saved all my data in safe mode ....

Did a clean installation and what surprise, no HDD troubles .... IT WAS A SOFTWARE problem and not a HARDWARE problem.

I'd like to know what Malkeleah (MS-MVP - Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!) would say now ^^ ....

Conclusion: Save your time doing a clean installation even it hurts at the beginning since you need to backup/restore, installing/configuring all your apps .... But it's worth the effort. Otherwise you'll loose a lot of hours with trying to fix this.