Vista will not boot all the sudden

[Ariez]

It wont get into vista and I get an Error 17: File not found. I also tried to repair it like 10 times with the windows CD but to no avail. :(

I can get into windows XP just fine and see all my windows vista files....is there any way I can fix this? I wish i can provide more info but all i see is:

Booting 'vista'

chainloader /bootmgr

error 17: File not found

booting 'vista'

Error 17: file not found

Press any key to continue

[defuseme2k]

chainloader, I'm not one to understand exactly whats going on there.... you have linux on there at all? The only place I saw chainloader was grub :\.

Anyway, if you can boot to xp, you can use http://www.vistabootpro.org/ to play with the vista boot loader -- even from xp. Vista boot loader just gives you a nice gui to edit the boot loader settings.

[Ariez]

chainloader, I'm not one to understand exactly whats going on there.... you have linux on there at all? The only place I saw chainloader was grub :\.

Anyway, if you can boot to xp, you can use http://www.vistabootpro.org/ to play with the vista boot loader -- even from xp. Vista boot loader just gives you a nice gui to edit the boot loader settings.

How do i play with the bootloader in XP? The prog is not recongnizing I have Vista in another hard drive.

[zacdl]

Sounds like you've edited your boot loader...
B/C you are at least booting XP as well as Vista (perhaps even *nix), it seems like that's probably the case...

[Ariez]

Sounds like you've edited your boot loader...
B/C you are at least booting XP as well as Vista (perhaps even *nix), it seems like that's probably the case...

How do i fix this?

[calebb]

You can boot from your Vista DVD and access a command prompt - from there you can edit your boot loader...

I'll cut and paste my response from last time someone asked this question:

Originally by calebb
With Server 2003 you need to edit your boot.ini to add the /PAE switch...

i.e.,


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)
\WINNT="Windows 2003 Datacenter Server" /PAE /basevideo /sos


But there is no boot.ini in Vista...

In this version of Windows, the boot.ini file has been replaced with Boot Configuration Data (BCD). This file is more versatile than boot.ini, and it can apply to computer platforms that use means other than basic input/output system (BIOS) to start the computer.

If you need to make changes to BCD, such as removing entries from the list of displayed operating systems, use the command line tool Bcdedit, an advanced tool intended for administrators and IT professionals. For technical information about Bcdedit, go to the Microsoft website for IT professionals.

bcdedit is a new command line tool in vista... more info here: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/08d64d13-4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true (http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library08d64d13-4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true)


After browsing around technet, I found steps to enable PAE (physical address extensions)

1. Boot Vista to safe mode with command line
2. Run the command: bcdedit /set PAE ForceEnable
3. Run bcdedit again to verify the switch is added
4. Reboot the system and check whether the problem is fixed


(and if this fubars something, boot to safemode again since PAE is never enabled in safe mode).


Incidentally, I thought PAE was only required for 32 bit versions of windows, but apparently somepeople need this with Vista 64bit. (and it seems to only happen to people who upgrade - it could be that if you do a clean install with 4GB memory, the Windows installer enables PAE for you?)


edit: one more thing I stumbled across:

To add to this re the /PAE switch. If your processor supports hardware DEP,
and DEP is on, then PAE is automatically enabled. Hardware DEP uses the PAE
kernel.


One more edit:
If this doesn't work or you don't believe this is an issue - try swapping out your video card! (do you have onboard video you can test with? Or a PCI card?)


And more info on diskpart: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415/