iastora.sys BSOD on HP ultrabook - can't even boot into windows

[fut832]

What a crappy day -.-


I've had this HP ultrabook for just over a year now. When I first bought it I disabled intel rapid storage technology and did a fresh install of windows. After installing a clean copy I installed the intel rapid storage again and enabled acceleration.

All has been running great until today.

I think it might've had something to do with last night. I was using the laptop last night and the battery level got pretty low (like 10%), so I closed the lid and let it go to sleep.

Woke up in the morning and opened the lid and it had turned off during the night like I suspected. This has happened before. I had left my charger at work.

So I boot it up and start using it at work again, its working fine. I'm in the middle of doing coding in eclipse when I get a BSOD. Scared me, I haven't had one in a LONG time.

At first I figured it was eclipse. I rebooted, updated eclipse to the most recent version, rebooted again, then continued coding in the updated version of eclipse.

About 5 minutes in, I get the BSOD again. Now I'm pretty pissed.

I read the BSOD message and it says something about iastora.sys and DIFF_NOT_EQUAL or some crap like that.

I google it and see that it is a common problem. One forum suggested updating rapid storage/drivers. So I did, and I rebooted....and got the same BSOD again.

So do some more googling, and another forum says to just disable RST completely. He said first step was to disable RAID in the bios. I go into my bios (InsydeH20 rev 3.7) and I can't find anything mentioning raid. I find a "Intel Rapid Start Technology" which is currently enabled, so I disable that. I save settings and continue to booting windows.

Once in windows, I go into the Rapid Storage Technology dashboard or w/e it is, and I disable acceleration. I see a little % counter that is counting up (it was rebuilding or something). Well, before it reached 100%...I got a BSOD AGAIN!

I attempt to reboot and now I'm really freaking out. After pushing the power button, I get a windows error recovery screen, but this time its different. My only options are "Launch Startup Repair (recommended)" and "Start Windows Normally". I click "Start Windows Normally" and get the "Starting Windows" loading screen. Right after that I get a very quick (don't have time to read it) BSOD, and then it reboots and I get a RST "Reconstructing cache metadata screen", and then it goes back to the same Error Recovery screen.

This time, I select "Launch Startup Repair". Only problem is, the OS / Partition Size / Location box is completely empty! I can't even do a restore/repair.

So now I'm totally lost. I'm posting this from an old desktop. Fortunately my critical files were on dropbox, but I would still like to try and get booted into windows and recover a few things that werent in dropbox.

Is there any way I can get back in? Have I f****d up big time?



TL;DR got a BSOD for iastora.sys so I disabled acceleration and got a BSOD in the middle of disabling. Now I am stuck in a BSOD boot loop and don't know what to do

 

[Arc]

Can you boot into safe mode? Let us know.

 

[fut832]

Tapped F8 a bunch of times after powering up and got the option for safe mode. Attempted booting into safe mode. I saw a bunch of drivers loading pretty fast, and then it paused after "Loaded: \Windows\system32\drivers\CLASSPNP.sys" then it BSOD'ed again and went into the "Reconstructing cache metadata" and then back to the Error recovery screen

 

[Arc]

Boot to System Recovery Options . Try Safe Mode with Command Prompt. In the command prompt .... enter the command ....

start msconfig

It will open the system configuration window, with the "general" tab selected.

• Click the "startup" tab. Click "Disable all" > Apply > OK.
• Click on "services" tab. Check the "Hide all Microsoft Services"; Click "Disable all" > Apply > OK

Then try to boot again normally. Is it failing still? Let us know..

Also look into the BIOS ... see if anything like Intel Smart Response is active there or not.

 

[fut832]

Attempted Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Unfortunately, the exact same thing that happened with Safe Mode. It froze up after CLASSPNP.sys and BSOD'ed.

As for BIOS, I disable Intel Rapid Start. A guy on another website said you could press "A" after pushing F10 to get into advanced bios settings, but it must've been removed in my bios. I do not have much control with this bios

EDIT: Sorry didn't realize you had posted a link. I tried the command prompt in the System Recovery Options. I am in X:\windows\system32. I typed start msconfig and the result is "Windows cannot find 'msconfig', Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.

I can also burn a Win 7 ISO onto USB flash drive if you need me to try anything with that

 

[Arc]

We needed to know how Intel RST is setup, otherwise it may not be a perfect instruction at all. But as there is no way, .... we have to manage within what we have.

Boot into the BIOS. Navigate to advanced BIOS features. Disable Intel Smart Response (or anything similar). Make it sure that he storage controller is not set to SCIS/RAID .... and set it to AHCI mode.

Then perform another clean reinstall; but dont install Intel RST there.

msahci.sys will not be any bad at all there as the storage controller.

 

[fut832]

In recovery console I launched diskpart and typed list disk. There is only one disk (Disk 0 Online 7635mb) which I am assuming is the recovery. So does this mean my computer doesnt even detect my hard drive?

 

[Arc]

How many HDDs do you have?

It might be that DISKPART is a DOS based operation and so it is failing to recognize the non-IDE (AHCI or SCSI; as RST is installed) discs.

Dont panic at this stage, mate

Wiping RST off the system will convert it to all good, as expected (provided there is no other issue).
So go for post #6?

 

[fut832]

I will give it a shot and let you know.

Also I couldn't find those settings in my BIOS. Unless there is some secret way to get into advanced settings, I don't know how to access those settings. All I can do is enable Rapid Star and change boot orders

 

[fut832]

So I attempted to do a clean install but I can not, due to there being no disks/partitions available in the installer (same problem in the windows repair utility)

I have the option to load drivers but I don't know what drivers I would need to load or where they would be located (I assume I would have to download some to an external flash drive? but not sure which ones)

From reading other sites, it appears my version of BIOS is pretty much locked down and I can not mess with raid/sata settings. There are BIOS mods/updates out there but HP only does updates through a windows program. Since I can't boot into windows at all, that means I'm pretty much screwed.

Is there any special linux distro out there that I can make a bootable USB to attempt to recover data from my drive? This laptop is on extended warranty but sending it in is a last resort for me.

 

[fut832]

UPDATE: using this tutorial Recover files from Windows hard disk using Puppy Linux | www.winhelp.us

In puppy linux I see all my partitions. I can mount them. Is there anything I can do from here?

Obviously I can back up my data, which is awesome. But can I actually fix the iastor thing from here?

 

[fut832]

I downloaded the latest iastora.sys and iastorf.sys onto a flash drive. Accessing my drivers folder through puppy linux, I was able to rename the old iastora.sys and iastorf.sys and drag the new ones into there. I shut down and attempted to boot windows again. This time, instead of a BSOD after the "Starting Windows" Animation screen, it goes into system recovery options (even when I select "Start Windows Normally"). Is this good progress?

 

[Arc]

You are trying really hard.

Well done with Puppy Linux.

But what we need here is to disable the IRST in the BIOS.

I am asking for some help form the hardware experts who can guide you through it. In between, you please let us know the model number of your laptop, which will help us to help you about the BIOS configuration.

 

[fut832]

Sure,

I have an HP ENVY 4-1043cl. The bios is InsydeH20 revision 3.7 F.02

Now that I have the data I needed, my primary goal is to do a fresh clean install of W7 without using the rapid storage stuff.

I really appreciate all your help

 

[Kari]

If you do a clean install (valid original Microsoft install media, not HP recovery media), the Intel Rapid Storage will not be automatically installed on your system but have to be instead downloaded and installed from HP support pages. If it is installed, you can uninstall it easily from Control Panel > Programs and Features.

View attachment 289987​

Kari

 

[fut832]

Thanks Kari. Once I get my BIOS figured out, i'll do a clean install

 

[fut832]

I found this topic Access HP Envy 14 F.23 BIOS Advanced Options

I tried that with my bios in all different combinations and it simply doesn't work.


I checked HP website to see if there is a newer bios for my laptop. There is! and it is version F.23, the same version people have success with accessing advanced settings

HP Notebook System BIOS Update (Intel Processors) - HP ENVY Ultrabook 4-1043cl | HP® Support

Now I need to figure out how to install from outside of windows

 

[Anak]

Now I need to figure out how to install from outside of windows

Will this help? How to Flash BIOS if you cannot start Windows - HP Support Forum - 436381, when you click on "Go to Solution" you arrive here on the second page: Re: How to Flash BIOS if you cannot start Windows - Page 2 - HP Support Forum - 436381

 

[fut832]

I think I'm gonna give this a try HP Insyde BIOS recovery steps.

 

[solsol]

i'm not sure if this post is still active but i'm having similar problems with the bsod and iastora.sys error message. i'd like to get my files off the computer to format it with the installation cds. i followed the puppy linux instructions but once puppy linux loads i only get a screen with a message saying that it is
loading drivers needed to access disk drives....done
searching puppy files in computer disk drives...
searching deeper, sub-sub-folders in partitions... lupu_528.sfs not found. dropping out into initial ramdiskconsole...
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
#

i tried putting drivers on the usb disk but i get the same message. i'd really appreciate help with this. thanks!