BleepingComputer.com: System Restore failed; now Startup Repair fails too

Hello everyone. I'm a big fan of this incredible website but I haven't actually posted here ... until now. Hope someone has some advice for me.

My HP laptop running Vista somehow picked up something nasty. Simple scans were not fixing it, so I figured I'd try to do a System Restore back to a point before I picked it up.

Short story is the Restore failed ... and now I can't get Windows to load even in safe mode.

Here's what I was able to copy manually from the error screen:

(After reboot following System Restore attempt:)
Microsoft Windows: Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically
(Send information about this problem)

Clicking on 'More details' shows:

Problem signature:
problem event name: StartupRepairV2;
signature 01: AutoFailover;
signature 02: 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6001.18000;
signature 03: 0;
signature 04: 65537;
signature 05: unknown;
signature 06: MissingOsLoader;
signature 07: 0;
signature 08: 3;
signature 09: FixBootConfig;
signature 10: 2;

OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1;
Locale ID: 1033

Diagnostic log (before reboot) showed all tests successful except Failed to find OS Loader.

Clicking through results in a reboot, and another OS load fail.

It lets me select "Advanced options" which opens a window with these links:

- Startup Repair [which fails again; repeats this whole process over]
- System Restore [which fails -- see below]
- Windows Complete PC Restore [sounds drastic -- have not attempted yet]
- Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool [does a restart to 'check memory for hardware errors', completes analysis, reboots -- then startup repair fails again; back to square one]
- Command Prompt [works-- opens a separate DOS window, but I'm not sure what to do next]
- Recovery Manager [not sure what it does -- haven't tried]

System Restore fails on retry, with this error window:
"System Restore: Restore system files and settings: No restore points have been created on your computer's system disk. To create a restore point open System Protection"

At that point I quit.

If anyone has ideas for next steps I'd be much obliged.
Thanks.

hi ,,, could be a boot loader prob,,, have a look at the 5th post down in the link,,,
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion...lease-help.html
do you have your pc backed up ?? if so and you have the windows disc i would just clean install the OS and reinstate the backups,, i have read a lot about this issue you have and it always seems to end up with a clean install to remedy the problem,, just thought id mention this in case you want to cut to the chase
good luck.

Thanks for the reply, Figgis, and for the link. Google helped me find that exact same post in the meantime. It recommends doing a bootrec.exe, which I tried from a command prompt ... which seems to execute successfully, but which doesn't seems to have any effect on my overall problem.

I appreciate the chase-cutting, which is a helpful shot of reality here that should help me move forward. Of course I don't have a back up. And of course it means I have to get an install version of the CD (which didn't ship with my preloaded laptop), and am trying to get a copy of Ubuntu downloaded to see if I can recover the zillions of files on the machine first. Looks like it'll be a while before I have anything working again ...