Solved System recovery error

[saker112]

Upon turning on my laptop, I get a screen saying that windows has failed to start and I should run system recovery. When I run this, however, the system recovery box never shows up. I left it at this point for several hours yesterday, but nothing happened. I made a system recovery disk and successfully got the computer to boot from the disk, but instead of seeing the screens in method two, I get a box that says "Error 0x4001100200001012" and has an ok button. If I press the ok button, the computer restarts. I'm not sure what to do next.

 

[Bill2]

That seems to be an issue peculiar to Dell, is this a dell computer?. You can download the 64 bit repair disk from here and try booting from that.

Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc — MAXIMUMpcguides – Windows 7 tips, tricks, help, and how-to guides

 

[saker112]

Dell XPS. I'm downloading it now, and I'll update when I've tried it.

 

[saker112]

I put the files on the cd, but it's skipping over the cd drive now to try to boot from the hard drive. Do I have to do anything special when putting it on the cd other than extracting it?

 

[Bill2]

You just have to burn the iso to the CD (use something like imgburn), dont extract the files or anything.

 

[saker112]

That worked. I have the box, but it won't recognize my operating system, says I need drivers, then gives me a big long list of files and folders. I looked around online, but I can't tell which one(s) I need.

 

[Bill2]

Your drivers are in C:\windows\system32\drivers.

Does it say what file type its looking for when you go to load drivers? .sys? .inf ?

 

[saker112]

It doesn't say, but all the files are .sys.

 

[Bill2]

Point it to disk.sys. If it lets you select multiple drivers point to partmgr.sys as well. Both are located in that drivers folder.

 

[saker112]

Both say that the "specified location does not contain information about your hardware." Is my hard drive screwed?

 

[Bill2]

You need to download the sata driver and point to that. You have not filled out your system specs, do that so somebody can help you locate the driver. You can even ask for help in the drivers subforums. Then follow this tut.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/68942-sata-drivers-load-windows-recovery-options.html

 

[saker112]

I have the SATA driver on a flash drive and I can follow until step five. I don't have any folders, and trying to just use the file I downloaded gets the same error as before. I opened it up and tried the files inside, but none of those worked either. Do I have to install it, then copy it over?

 

[saker112]

I found the SATA driver, found the right file, and got to choosing a SATA controller. I ran through every one it came up with, and none of them worked. I even tried it without selecting one and left it sitting for hours. This one hung up on searching for windows. Now what?

 

[Bill2]

Hello again. I'm not too sure. This is a dell xps you said, it would have come with a diagnostic CD from Dell. Can you please try running that and see what it says about the hard disk.

Another thing you can try is running Seatools diagnostic which is downloadable from their website. Use the one for DOS, not windows.

 

[saker112]

Seatools is saying that no hard drives have been found and no controllers have been detected. Now is my hard drive screwed?

 

[saker112]

I just got off the phone with Dell's tech support. The hard drive did fail, which is odd since I have had this laptop about a month. They're sending a new hard drive, which is supposed to get here before I leave for college on Wednesday. Thank you for helping, all the same. I guess this makes it solved.

 

[Bill2]

Thankyou for posting back with the update.