Solved Dell factory recovery BSOD

[Galane]

I'm working on a Dell Inspiron 1545. The install of Windows 7 Home Premium was extremely damaged, couldn't run most programs, couldn't get Properties on anything, couldn't change desktop settings to put Computer and other icons on it. Could not uninstall or install anything. Pretty much the only thing possible was copying the owner's Documents folder to a USB drive. Nothing in any of the DELL folders would run, so if there was anything to create a restore disc set, it was not possible to do so.

Very. Thoroughly. Hosed. Owner installed several well known "fix" programs that are anything but. Dunno how it managed to boot or do anything at all.

So I hit F8, went to the recovery, used Dell's factory restore - selected the options to *keep nothing*. It goes through the motions, restarts and it reboots partway through the startup animation. Second boot it makes it through the animation then flashes a blue screen and reboots.

So I go back with F8 and disable automatic reboot so I can snap a pic of the BSOD with my phone. Here's the full stop error

stop: 0x0000007b (0xfffff880009a98e8, 0xffffffffc000000d, 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)

Next step was connecting the drive to another computer to delete the OS partition then redo the factory recovery. Nope! Exact same STOP error.

Can't get any logs because it doesn't boot yet. It has to boot to finish setting up Windows and installing the factory loadout of drivers etc.

I know the BCDedit and other tools are on the recovery partition. Ease US shows it all with the drive connected to another computer, but so far every how-to I've tried that involves looking at the recovery partition with a command prompt - all the files and folders needed to try to fix it remain hidden.

Is there a bootable ISO I can download, with BCD fixing software ready to go? What would be real nice is if Dell would release a bootable image file to repair their broken recovery system, or if the recovery was setup to "brute force" reset *everything* to exactly how it needs to be to work.

 

[SIW2]

You should be able to access the wim file on the recovery partition and apply it with a suitable tool. Even 7-zip would do it

 

[dg1261]

So I hit F8, went to the recovery, used Dell's factory restore - selected the options to *keep nothing*. It goes through the motions, [...]

By "goes through the motions", do you mean it seems to take the amount of time you'd expect for a factory restore, and displays the screens you'd expect? IOW, can we assume you mean the restore process itself didn't seem to abort prematurely and seemed to continue to a proper conclusion and reboot?

... restarts and it reboots partway through the startup animation.
[...]
stop: 0x0000007b

That's reminiscent of the wrong BIOS setting for HDD mode. Have you checked if the BIOS is set for AHCI mode?

 

[Galane]

Restore appears to operate completely normal, and when connected to another computer I can see some hidden folders with installers for the various pre-installed software that would, if it would boot correctly, be deleted after it's finished installing and reboots again normally from preinstallation environment.

The question is what has gone wrong that the restore is not correcting, and how to fix it so I don't have to resort to things like copying all the extra software and driver installers off, doing a clean install of generic Win 7 home premium x64 then installing all that stuff.

The SATA controller is set to AHCI mode. Nothing out of sorts in the BIOS. I've also tried booting off a Win 7 disc to run startup repair from it instead of what's in the recovery partition. Same result of not fixing it.

 

[Galane]

One of the how-to's I found is here http://triplescomputers.com/blog/ca...00000d-0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000000/

Looks like it'd be just the thing, except for the recovery failing to un-hide all the tools required to actually do any of that.

What if I could somehow insert attrib from Windows 7 into the root of the recovery partition?

Edit: I can see all in the recovery partition by enabling showing system files in Explorer. Boot is there. I used an administrator command prompt to use attrib to remove its system and hidden attributes.

Put the drive back in the Dell, boot up to startup repair, go to the advanced options, command prompt. It's on X:\windows\system32 (bootrec, bootsec, attrib etc are here)

x:\Boot is now hidden and attrib claims x:\Boot does not exist

\Boot has not yet been created on the OS partition because final install/setup hasn't happened.

That appears to be the problem, something is either deleting \Boot on the recovery partition or hiding it in some way that it should not. The preinstall Windows on that partition cannot find \Boot, nor can procedures intended to fix it.

I could try changing its attributes again to -s -h and add +r to see if that will stop it from re-hiding it so that attrib can see it to hit it with -r

Attrib is supposed to be able to work on files and folders if the exact path to the hidden item is known. Something is interfering with that.

 

[SIW2]

X is the letter of booted winpe loaded into ram. After booting into winpe type notepad in cmd prompt. When notepad opens, click Save. Then select "All" in the dropdown so you can browse your computer to find the letter

 

[Galane]

X is the letter of booted winpe loaded into ram. After booting into winpe type notepad in cmd prompt. When notepad opens, click Save. Then select "All" in the dropdown so you can browse your computer to find the letter

Ah, it's given the recovery partition D:

*enters all the long list of commands replacing C: with D:*

Can't find \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Booted off an old Win 7 multi-oem disc, went to repair. IT finds something wrong. Click to repair and restart and...

"Preparing your computer for first use"

Hallelujah! It works!

Now why the heck couldn't Dells own recovery/restore get this correct?!