Window will not boot after some updates. Recovery disk does not work.

[Omegaman007]

Guys,
My PC with Window 7 x64 has been working fine for months. Yesterday I performed a few tasks including:

1. Uninstalling Norton Security (since my paid subscription expired)
1A. Created a backup using the build-in backup application.
2. After #1 MS Security Essentials re-installed (I think I had installed it prior to Norton)
3. Nvidia drivers updated
3A. Some windows updates were installed (via windows update)
4. USB3 driver updated (via windows update)
5. ARMA2 from steam installed

After a reboot or two all the browsers would lock up, along with file explorer. At that point I decided to "revert PC to an earlier time" and chose a file with a date prior to yesterday. This is when things started to go really bad. At that point my PC would no longer boot up and I got the error that in the screenshot attached.

At this point, I thought 'No problem, I'll grab a recovery disk and restore the backup that I made in step 1A". Then I was in for another surprise.... both the Windows recovery disk that I made and a normal windows install disk would boot up to the blue screen and then gave me the BSOD that I attached in photo 2.

Now I'm not sure what to do. I ran memtest86 overnight and it ran a total of 5 passes with no errors. I did not play with any of the hardware at all so I don't think it's a hardware issue. I'd like to try restoring the backup but I don't know how to get to it now that the restore disks/install disks result in a BSOD.

I think the USB3 driver may have been the culprit but I'm not positive why it would become such a fatal error since there are no drives attached to the USB3 card that I have installed.

Please help... I don't want to have to re-install Windows.

Thanks.

 

[Arc]

A stop 0x7F caused by ataport.sys.

Do you use all the three OSs in the same computer? If so, are they installed in the same HDD? Are they configured in multi-boot setup? If so, what is the bootloader? MBR or GRUB?

Anyway, ataport.sys is the ATA channels driver (alongwith atapi.sys) under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. So, it may have something to do with the storage controllers. Are they up-to-date? And what is the mode of the storage controllers set?

Also, ataport.sys is very vulnerable to a special type of malware called rootkit. When a rootkit infects the MBR partition, sometimes it is called as bootkit, too. It makes the MBR inactive and the computer becomes non-bootable in turn.

Follow it:
Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start

The bootable virus scanners suggested in the initial steps will help you to determine any possible infections, and the other steps will help you make the system bootable again (provided it is not a GRUB bootloader).

 

[Omegaman007]

Arc,
First, thank you for the quick reply. I only have one OS installed on the system (Windows 7 x64) and an option to boot other OSes never came up. Why do you believe that I have more than one OS installed?

Windows resides on a RAID0 SSD array composed of 2 Force 3 120GB drives. I'm running them off the motherboard's intel SATA 2 controller. I have additional (mechanical/magnetic) hard drives installed for storage and such.

Neither Norton (prior to me uninstalling it), nor Security Essentials (which did a quick scan after installation) found any viruses on my machine, nevertheless I'll follow your recommendations and scan the computer.

Do you know why the recovery disk would be trying to access the version of the ataport.sys off of the C drive instead of the one on the CD? Thats confusing me the most.

Do you know if windows backup would have backed up the MBR and boot area? I did an image of the C drive as mentioned in step 1A but I don't know how to access without first getting into Windows (which at this point I'm not able to).

 

[Omegaman007]

Well this is interesting... your post about multiple OSs got me thinking so I disconnected all the other HDs aside from the RAID array with Windows and I pulled out ASUS U3S6 card (which typically the Bluray and front panel SD card reader/writer are connected to).

THE SYSTEM BOOTED!

Next I reconnected the two other HDs and rebooted... got the same error as before. I checked the MB BIOS and for some reason the boot order was reversed. This boggles my mind because I haven't played in the BIOS since my last windows re-install about a year ago I think!

I fixed the drive boot order in the BIOS and the system booted fine again. I'm now running a virus scan. Next I guess I should run a system file check (SFC) and reconnect the U3S6 card. Do you think I should try to restore from my backup after that or should I wait to see how things go first?

Keeping my fingers crossed....

 

[Omegaman007]

OK, still having issues. After I plugged everything back in the system boots up normally but whenever I try to type into firefox, IE, or chrome browser a URL the browser hangs. SFC found no error and the PC is clean of viruses after a full scan with MS Security Essentials. Also, trying to load a repair CD still ends up giving me the same BSOD. I'm trying the image restore now to see if it will help.

 

[Arc]

If you are facing issues with all the browsers, the first suspect is a backdated network driver and the second suspect is an ambitious antivirus. Virus comes third as a suspect.

First of all, upload your MSINFO32.nfo file.

1. Click on the start button
2. Type "msinfo32" (without quotes) in the search bar of the start menu, click the resulting link. It will open the System Information window.
3. File>Save. In the "File Name" filed, put "MSINFO32" (without Quote), give the save location to desktop, and click the "save" button.
4. Give the time for processing, it will save a .nfo file on your desktop.
5. Zip it, and upload it following the instruction.

It will give us some basic hint about those stuff. Depending on that knowledge, we will go for further troubleshooting.

 

[Omegaman007]

OK, I performed the image restore and overall things have settled down. Browsers work now as do the few applications and Arma 2 that I've tried. I was sweating bullets during the restore because it looked like it was going to boot in a similar fashion to how the recovery disk booted, and I was concerned that it would blue-screen. It did not, however, and it restored fine. Worked better then the experience that I had with an Arconis trial version that I tried in the past.

Offline MS Security Essentials was not able to run off of CD because it ended up blue-screening similar to the way it did when I tried the recovery disk, but without the ataport.sys portion (screenshot attached). I just re-installed MSSE and ran it from within Windows again. I tried the recovery CD again just to see what would happen and it blue-screened in an identical fashion to the image in my original post. Could it be due to the bluray drive? I haven't tried creating a version of MSSE on a bootable USB drive. Maybe I'll give that a try tomorrow if we can't think of anything else.

I attached my MSINFO32 file per your request. Let me know if you need any of the other log files. It didn't look like the BSOD saved any data like they typically do though... (since the BSODs happen when it's booting from a CD).

Have a good night and thanks again for the help.

 

[Arc]

stop 0x7F often refers to failing storage controllers (specially RAID). It is an issue with the storage controllers as it was uppermost from the very beginning. The msinfo32.nfo makes it clear. You have an unplanned RAID setup.

• GIGABYTE GBB36X Controller (actually it is JMicron)
• Marvell 91xx SATA 6G Controller
• Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller

Plus, Virtual CloneDrive by Elaborate Bytes AG, which installs its own SCSI adapter.

RAID is always problematic with windows7 that we have noticed. You should de-RAID it and see how it works.

Boot into the BIOS. Disable all the RAID options there. Disable All intel IRST options too, and set the storage controller mode to AHCI. The problematic RAID will go now.

But, the problem is, when windows will not find the storage controller on which it installed, it will refuse to boot. That means, changing the storage controllers to AHCI is not the sufficient.

You have to install windows with AHCI controller. So after changing the controllers, follow http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html which will give you a perfect windows installation(works equally good for retail, too).

I know that a clean reinstall is a lot of hassles. But it is supposed that either it will give you a stable system, or at least it will make it sure that the issue is not with the softwares part.

 

[Omegaman007]

Arc,
I was busy for the last couple of days but today I got back around to troubleshooting this BSOD. I disconnected the RAID drives and booted up with an old WD Raptor that I still had in the box. OS (Win 7) looked fine so I tried the recovery CD again... Got the BSOD again even with the ICH controller in AHCI mode. Then I swapped the Bluray drive from the Gigabyte controller to the ASUS S3U6 card and tried it again. It booted with no BSOD! So I reconnected the RAID drives and again tried the recovery CD. No BSOD! So it looks like the Bluray drive either 1. Does not like the Gigabyte controller, the controller is bad, or perhaps it is a bad cable. Not much I can do about the first two but I do want to check the cable in the next few days.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Arc]

OK, let us know about any further advancement