Ask Me Help Desk - Sony Vaio will no longer boot Vista, Hard drive failure?

Sony Vaio laptop seems bricked 1 week after warranty. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

Initial occurance: Wife was loading an app when it froze. She tried a restart and vista failed to boot.

Can access BIOS at Vaio splash screen. Windows Boot Manager says :
File: \Windows\system32\config\system
Status: 0xc00000e9
Info: Windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing, or corrupt.

Cannot restart in any modes offered. It says 'windows is loading files.. '.. but eventually arrives at the same Windows boot manager message above.

I have tried to use the system recovery discs I made when I first got the computer,(yes, this is a pre installed Vista OS), but that also fails. It says it is loading window files, it will show a MS logo and progress bar, but eventually ends up at a black screen with a white mouse pointer you can move around. But that is all.

I contacted Sony and went through all the basics of their problem solving flowcharts with a tech 'expert', only to have them tell me to send it in for repair.

I've checked cable connection on hard drive, removed and re installed memory modules, tried setting everything back to default factory settings at BIOS, and bought a new copy of Vista in case my recovery discs were faulty.

The new copy of vista does the same thing as the recovery disc: It falls short of the screen asking for language preference, and will just sit with a black screen with mouse pointer.

My next step I believe is the HD, but I'd like to hear other opinions before I proceed to purchase one. Can anyone help?

Open the puppy back up and note the manufacturer of the hard drive. Then, using another computer, go to the manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic utility. Create the diagnostic bootable floppy/CD/USB flash drive and run the diagnostic on the laptop choosing any full scan option and then proceed from the results reported. NOTE: The laptop's device boot order in the BIOS may need to be fiddled with to get the laptop to boot the diagnostic media.

Blindly running various recovery media in the hope that one "works" is time consuming, expensive if you're buying new, and even if successful may leave you with a drive that is failing in which case you'll be right back to where you are now in a short amount of time.

All the BIOS settings may also need revisiting in order to have the laptop work properly with its specific hardware in the manner you desire. Defaulting the BIOS of a working computer with a non-BIOS related issue of a corrupt file or bad hard drive tends to make the situation worse by adding new issues and potentially rendering the computer inoperative.

Relevant Reading:
A Stop error occurs, or the computer stops responding when you try to start Windows Vista

Have you tried to see if you can get into safe mode?

If you can, try to do a system restore to an earlier date

Thanks seahwk83, but it won't start in any of the safe modes.

Scleros, thanks for responding, the HD is a Toshiba and they do not have any diagnostic utilities/tools to DL on their site. I have contacted them about it but have not yet heard back from them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefish

the HD is a Toshiba and they do not have any diagnostic utilities/tools to DL on their site.

Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test utility works with other brands of drives. If the basic tests and a couple passes of the exerciser routine completes, the drive is likely OK.

Thanks Scleros. I ran the drive fitness test as directed and it gave me the error code for having a corrupted sector on the drive. If this was a Hitachi HD then it recommends erasing and reformatting using the utilities provided. However, it will not perform these options on a Toshiba HD. I will try to find such a program that I can run from a boot disk. Any suggestion and/or warnings would be appreciated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Runefish

Any suggestion and/or warnings would be appreciated.

If the current drive is several years old and has seen substantial use, consider replacing it altogether. For me, it is less hassle to reinstall Vista and applications to a new drive, and then if possible pull any data to be retained off the old drive by installing it as a second drive than it is to try and backup a drive with errors before wiping it. If you decide to attempt repair, the free utilities Active Kill Disk Hard Drive Eraser or Darik's Boot And Nuke can erase the drive. Thoroughly exercise the drive with a multipass DBAN method followed by a full surface scan several times. Then the drive can be reformatted and partitioned during Windows setup. How to install Windows Vista describes doing a "clean" install (to a blank drive). BIOS boot order settings may need to be adjusted first to boot from CD/DVD. If you received recovery media instead of a plain vanilla Microsoft OEM Vista disc, the laptop's documentation should address the recovery process.

Other potential "gotchas" include locating all the necessary drivers for the laptop hardware if Vista doesn't have them built-in, recreating any desired special partition or drive structures used for recovery or diagnostics by Toshiba that may be present, and the nagging feeling of is the drive is really reliable?

I have found that either replacing your hard drive, or installing a different operating system works pretty well. I replaced the pre-installed Vista with Ubuntu 11.4, and I'm having no problems at all so far. But replacing your hard drive and installing Windows or whatever Operating System you prefer should work pretty well.