Vista Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically. Part 4 of 4. Solution to Recover My Hard Drive Data.

Wow, you stayed with me till the bitter end. This is the last part of the "Vista Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically" problem. My Vista laptop got fixed exactly along these lines. What about yours? Read on...



If your Windows Vista is booting into Vista System Recovery and your Startup Repair Tool fails with the message "Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically", then you will find a treat here by reading on. You'll find several possibilities to restore your Vista system and recover your Hard Drive Data. One of them just might work for you!

After two (2) of the Blue Screen of Death crashes, my Vista will not boot properly. My laptop consistently refuses to boot Vista and goes into Vista System Recovery mode. This is preventing me from recovering my hard drive data or using Vista in general.

I tried all possible options there and found out that the hard drive seems in good shape and the laptop memory seems in good shape. But the Vista Startup Repair Tool which is an option in Vista Startup Recovery mode failed to fix the Vista system and therefore my laptop will not boot to Vista.

I looked into the details of the Startup Repair log I found after  I got the "Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically" message. The Startup Repair log reported that "Boot critical file c:\windows\system32\drivers\euqvfx.sys is corrupt" and that the attempted file repair failed.

Curiously, I did find an article at http://ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1372 . This looked like some great and simple advice on how to fix driver files manually after Startup Repair failed with the dreaded "Startup Repair Can Not Repair This Computer Automatically" message!

Following ocmodshop.com advice I changed directory from X:\windows to c:\windows

cd c:\windows

and searched for OTHER (spare?) copies of euqvfx.sys in ALL subdirectories with the option "/d". If you follow this step, you need to replace euqvfx.sys with the system file that your scan found corrupt.

dir euqvfx.sys /d

Well.. surprise! dir command finished but NO other copies were found, and the single euqvfx.sys in c:\windows\system32\drivers\ had size 0 (ZERO).

I searched the X: disk as well, nothing, no euqvfx.sys found!

Hmm, how important can this file be for boot if it has no spare copies? And is not present at all on the Recovery Partition X:?

So I decided bravely  to simply delete the file:

del c:\windows\system32\drivers\euqvfx.sys

And guess what, after a reboot, sfc /scannnow ran to completion successfully and I was later also able to boot into Vista proper. My files are ALL restored back in places where I left them, and I have normal access to everything! Even now, after three days (probably many more as you read this), typing this on the same laptop, I see NO problems whatsoever with my system. My problem solved! My hard drive data recovered!

To summarize Part 1 to Part 4, You have seen that when Vista computer crashes with several Blue Screens of Death it does cause trouble with system boot and Vista in general. You've seen that the system might repeatedly boot into Vista System Recovery. You've seen that checking the disk and memory might show nothing is wrong. You have seen two ways of using Vista Startup Repair Tool, automatic and manual. Even if automatic Startup Repair fails, you still have a chance. In case of a corrupt file, you can replace that file, or, like I did, remove it (take a deep breath before you to that!)!

My problem solved. Maybe this will help you too?

Let me know what are the symptoms of the problem you have. Did you find the solution above helpful? Mind you, if you repeat what I did or do something similar, you are on your own. I can not accept any responsibility for the potential damage.... But since you can not start Vista anyways, how much damage can there be....? Well, before doing any deletions and such, I suggest to at least copy the data you need from the C: drive and the D: drive to the DVD or CD drive in your laptop. You should have no problem doing that if you know how to work the command line tool.

The above solution may not help you. Still, realize, going into vista System Recovery options screen is not the end of the world. A good computer repair shop in your town can very likely help you recover hard disk data first before fixing or reinstalling the Windows system. Professional help will, however, cost quite some money. But it may save you a lot of time and frustration.

Good luck!

Let me know in the comment if you had any of the symptoms I described here and in the previous 3 posts. Also please let me know whether any of the possible solutions were helpful to you.

Just leave me a comment, will you?

34 comments:

computer repair said...

The advice given here for repairing boot related problems on Vista yourself is really useful and this can safe you lots of money which computer repair service center would charge.

Anonymous said...

HI there!

I seem to have the same problem. My laptop was working fine as it has for the last three years, then I went to have my dinner. I returned to find that my computer was trying to repair startup, obviously having crashed, BSoD-ed then tried to sort it out. Since that time I have managed to start up Vista properly twice, but each time it crashed unexpectedly. Going into Vista using 'Safe Mode' I can tell that my hard drive etc. seems fine, so I'll be trying your method out to see how it works!

I'll let you know when I'm done / I've killed my laptop.

M.B.

Disclosure said...

Hi, M.B., Yes, let us know how it goes! Also, check all the previous 3 parts (of total 4). My computer has been running great for 10 months now since fixing this! So yea, come back and let us know one way or the other. As you can see, I had to manually replace a few files when doing Startup Repair in Vista, you may not need to go that far.

Anonymous said...

Hello again!

Having had a day off today, I have had several hours to attempt to cure my Vista. It hasn't worked. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn't have a missing/corrupted driver, but comes up with the error 'Page Fault in Nonpaged Area'.

I have no idea what to do and am considering an emergency upgrade to Windows 7 to be my only remaining option. What do you think?

Thanks,
Matt

Disclosure said...

Well Matt, I generally never upgrade Microsoft operating systems. I keep them. Who knows what other problems an upgrade will bring, if it solves this problem at all.

Have you gone through Part 1 to Part 4 of this post? That will give you an idea of what kind of things you can do with Startup Repair. This is quite complicated.

Have you considered simply purchasing another laptop/computer and transferring data to it from the existing hard drive?

That is what I would do if I would lose hope with Startup Repair. As you may be able to tell, I was pretty close to being that desperate. But I found a way out. As described in Part 1 to Part 4 of this post. And my Vista is humming along smoothly ever since.

Of course, the decision is yours.

Greetings, and let us know more!

Anonymous said...

I've got the exact same problems you've described in your articles, but my system repair log did not show a corrupt file. I'm still at a loss as to what to do.

Disclosure said...

Jamsun1227, Tough! Since you have already followed all the steps, there is not much else I can suggest. So are you saying that your Vista will never come up no matter what you do, but will always go into startup repair?

Anonymous said...

Disclosure, that's correct. Not even loading from the Vistas disk gets me past the startup repair.

Disclosure said...

Did you read the posts above from ocmodshop.com? You'll see how to manually correct the drivers.

Anonymous said...

I've read the articles. I don't have a bad file that I can erase, at least, I don't know if I do. Nothing's ever come up. I'll go back through the articles and try everything again in case i missed something. Sigh. This is so frustrating.

Disclosure said...

Your next step would be to rescue user files off of the disk and reinstall Windows. Can you see all your files when you are in the Recovery mode? I remember being able to do that. Or, some suggested getting the hard drive out and copying the data off of it... sorry to hear about the continuing inability to bring the computer up.

Winnipeg Computer Repair said...

Personally I'd Just Pull Out The Hard Drive, Back It All Up Into A Huge Zip Or Rar File Incase There Is Virus, Etc Inside. Delete The Existing Hard Drive Partition(s) Then Make A New Partition For The Operating System, Another Partition For The Files I Just Backed Up, Reinstall The Operating System, Update To Current Security Updates And Service Packs, Then Copy The Original Zip/RAR File To The Storage Partition And Then Restore Things Like Pictures, Videos, Music, Etc From The Backup File And Call It A Day... As For Remaining Data/Software Applications I Work Out An Hourly Rate On The Rest Of This For The Obvious Reasons It Can Take Much Longer To Install Computer Applications When Your User Has Almost Every Computer Software Application Ever Made Installed And Wants Them Reinstalled. Vista Really Sucks. I'd Rather Use Windows 3.11 Or Windows 95 On Dial Up Then Windows Vista. Hehe.
I Tried To Follow Your Blog But You Dont Have Any Follow Me Apps Installed =(. Great Blog, Great Post. Good Luck!

Disclosure said...

Hey Thanks Winnipeg for your suggestions, and support. I've added Followers and Subscribe To ... they were not used much before, most people just find their solution and dash on... ;) I understand your point about reinstalling software... 10 Gigabytes of just software programs on one laptop. I never needed to reinstall the operating system yet, but if I ever had to, I would install software on the NEED TO HAVE again basis. Thanks again, have a great day.

Anonymous said...

fixed, thanks
Had the same problem with the repeating repair screen. The file you name was not on my system so I scanned the file sizes and lo and behold there was a .sys file of zero size. I deleted it and everything is great now.
Thanks again.

Disclosure said...

Anon, Wonderful! Every little bit helps! Even a zero size file! Thanks for contributing to this blog!

Raghu said...

Awesome! Great!
You saved my life, it worked. It was a picture perfect scenario for my laptop problem.

Thanks a Bunch..!
Raghu

Winnipeg Computer Repair said...

Hey I Just Wanted To Throw In That You Can Also Slip Stream Every Application In The World Into Your Microsoft Windows Operating System Installation Disc Or Your Bootable USB Stick To Be Installed Everytime You Do A Fresh Install On Any Type Of Computer If You Find Yourself Installation The Same Applications (Windows Live, Google Talk, VLC Media Player, Vuze/Azureus, Java, .NET Framework, Security Updates And Patches Etc.. You Can Go As Far As To Make A Customized Reinstallation Disc For Your Customers And Clients That Have All The Device Drivers And Software Program Applications Pre Installed To What Will Most Likey Be A DVD.. You Can Copy A Windows XP CD Content To A DVD Disc For More Space. You Can Even Go Further And Partition Your Hard Drive In Such A Way That You Can Auto Boot Your Installation From Your Second Partition Or Hard Drive And Set It Up So When Windows Boots And The Insert Key (or any key for that matter) Is Help Down After Your PC Leaves The BIOS And Is About To Boot Into Windows The Boot Loader Kicks In And Starts The Installation Process From The Secondary Partition. Hehe You Can Go Even Further Yet To The Point You Hold Down The Page Down Key On Boot And The Boot Loader Will Copy Your Existing Installation On Your Hard Drive In Backed Up Form To Your Third Partition And Install Your Operating System From The Secondary Partition To The First Partition. Thats If You Wanna Get Cute. Depending On The Software You Can Usually Customize An Installation Partition Ready To Go With The Latest And Greatest Everything In Under One Hour. Ill Be Writing A Detailed Guide On How To Do Exactly That ^ Up There Check Me Out In A Few More Months =)

Disclosure said...

Raghu, Thanks. Glad the original post helped!

Winnipeg, That is a great suggestion! Looking forward to a detailed guide. I sometimes wish a magic key would be there to reinstall Vista, WITH the programs installed.

Mind you, my programs installed are well into 10 GByte (not ALL of which I need dearly...)

Please come back when you have more on this!

Anonymous said...

hey0 ther...i hear u you guys tokin about a problem similar to mine...my laptop says start up repair cant fix the problem automatically then it says thr is somethin preventin windows to start normally...dis is my error details...

problem event name: start-up repair offline
sig1: 6.1.7600.16385
sig2: 6.1.7600.16385
sig3: 0
sig4: 1
sig5: NoRootCause
sig6: 2
OS version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
locale ID: 1033

i'v tried evrythin it suggested i do but to no avail...SO ANY IDEAS WOULD BE REALLY APPRECIATED. PLEASE HELP...

Disclosure said...

Anon, At which step did you get this error message? Please describe your complete procedure from turning your computer on to getting this message. Then we can help you better.

Anonymous said...

Help! I have a similar problem. My acer laptop will not boot up. It almost gets to the log in screen but then an duser.dll error comes up. I have the same sfc /scannow problem you had which says there is something pending... I did however try "dir duser.dll" in the cmd for the x drive and it found it. Now did it find the corrupt duser.dll of is it a spare... if it's a spare how do i swap them?

Disclosure said...

Anon, you need to get the original duser.dll from the Windows installation CD. Or, depending on your situation, a copy of this original file could be on some other partition.

Anonymous said...

Oh, thank goodness for comment posts!! I've been working on my computer for weeks and i really thought all was lost.. My laptop's antivirus was out of date and i kept meaning to buy the new licence but,, any way I get a virus or a hack and i buy the software,(AVG I.S.2011) run it and of course im infected, i move to vault, run my avg pc tune up and restart.. WINDOWS FAILED DUE TO CRITICAL SYSTEM DRIVER MISSING OR CORRUPT!! AHHH!! any way days and nites cross-eyed at the screens,, i find your post.. followed and YIPPEEEE!! Restart -- boot-- Windows-- FIXED.. so thanks

Disclosure said...

Anonymous, We like comments like yours! Living proof that this advice works! Wow, who knew AVG would cause the system to be not bootable like that.

Data recovery and virus removal service in Hillsboro said...

hey Thanks for your suggestions, and support. I've added Followers and Subscribe too ... they were not used much before, most people just find their solution and dash on.

Disclosure said...

You're welcome. Did you subscribe to this blog? Let me know what is your blog and I will subscribe there too.

Computer Repair Brooklyn said...

It’s look like you cover every thing in this Article. This is great and finally got something to learn after roming around the other blogs.

Anonymous said...

I have a desktop that has Vista OS, crashed cannot do any of the F8 commands,won't start in safe mode, wont go to recovery prison :),can't even get it to boot from CD disk. However, I do have a window, ax, and a dumpster available.

Disclosure said...

Well either you use the ax, or give us a description of what DOES happen with your Vista, instead of what DOESN'T happen. The more details on what DOES happen exactly you tell us, the better we can help.

Also you can look at other blog posts, or search within the blog, using the search box in the left column, above. It says "Can't Find What You're Looking For? Search Site With Google"

Anonymous said...

I am having the same issue with my dell laptop but I don't have a clue as where to even begin or how to fix this.

Disclosure said...

Yeah, following the procedure described in the original post is not the easiest thing in the world. Good luck and let us know what you finally did?

Siddika Mansour said...

nice description

Windows

Anonymous said...

Customer's Toshiba laptop showing similar symptoms. Initial boot error mentioned a corrupted or missing (randomly named) sys file called czvpgyff which turned out to be zero length. Quite obviously part of a trojan infection (no google hits on the name). Since it was a zero length randomly named SYS file, I had no qualms whatsoever in deleting it.

Mounted the drive on test system booted into UBCD4WIN and used the remote registry editor to remove all references to this rogue file (over hundred rollback copies of the control key!). After that, the error went away.

If you find an oddly named sys or dll file that fails to show up in a google search, it's safe to say that it's more to do with a trojan than the system itself and therefore safe to delete (even more so when it's a zero length file).

Just deleting the file may not be enough (certainly in case of an error message which includes the word "missing"). You'll also have to remove all subkeys from the registry that reference the rogue file (UBCD4WIN is your friend here).

Anonymous said...

Im typing this from my damaged computer and i cant even find the driver even tough the error is the same.

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