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Question

Crashes in any form of recovery - System restore

by Jan 11, 2014 5:56AM PST

I recently was fiddling with my graphics card for coin mining, moving them around, modding, etc. when windows decided to essentially shut down all services; aero stopped working, no internet, sound, even system restore wouldnt work naming a Volume Shadow Copy error (still wouldnt work after turning the service on). I actually had this same problem on another computer before and simply did a system restore through the boot up 'repair my computer' recovery tool.

However, this does not work for my desktop. The files load, I see the little green microsoft loading bar and even the first page of the blue background recovery screen only to have it crash a few seconds later. Computer just shuts off and turns right back on. This exact problem occurs even with a windows recovery disk. It seems as the problem persists through every form of recovery. I also tried all safe modes with successful booting but none allow for system restore.


NOTE: When I was working with the graphics cards I did use a bootable usb drive with win98 dos. Both of my two graphics cards work fine individually yet using either the crashing problem continues.

Discussion is locked

11 Posts
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Answer
This is why everyone should back their system up.
by Jan 11, 2014 6:08AM PST

You're going to need to boot from a live CD (like Ubuntu or Mint Linux), copy your data to a flash drive or external hard drive, then restore to factory settings. If you had a full system backup, you could be back up and working in 30 minutes, but unfortunately you're into the pound of cure since you didn't use the ounce of prevention.
`
Good luck.

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Answer
short your BIOS to reset it
by Jan 11, 2014 11:37AM PST

may be a glitch in it and shorting will cause the BIOS to completely reset itself.

Does this still apply? It also doesn't make sense. Do they work fine each by itself? Do you mean the crash only happens when BOTH are used not "either"?

"Both of my two graphics cards work fine individually yet using either the crashing problem continues."

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Already tried that..
by nosreme722 Jan 12, 2014 4:10AM PST

I've already tried shorting the bios..

Yeah sorry, didn't really know how to word that. Basically the problem persists and is exactly the same no matter what configuration of graphics cards I use.

It's very strange because I'm able to boot into other bootable things like g-parted and the win98 dos so I'm baffled as to why it's only crashing when I try to boot into any type of recovery.

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Kapersky recovery
by nosreme722 Jan 12, 2014 4:32AM PST

I actually got into the Kapersky recovery software and attempted to restore but it couldn't find any restore points at all so now I'm afraid even if I get into a windows recovery it won't find any either.

.. Just Tried to get back into Kapersky and it crashed.. So lost

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Answer
VGA setting?
by Jan 12, 2014 5:26AM PST
"NOTE: When I was working with the graphics cards I did use a bootable usb drive with win98 dos. Both of my two graphics cards work fine individually yet using either the crashing problem continues."

Do you have a VGA setting to force an IRQ on it, which might now be both cards attempting to use the same IRQ, and doing what used to happen in past with IRQ conflicts.
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Reinstalling Windows
by nosreme722 Jan 18, 2014 7:03AM PST

IRQ? Im not exactly sure what youre talking about but I do have some updates.

So, I'm almost certain it has something to do with the motherboard, probably a hardware problem.

First I reflashed the bios successfully. Then I wiped the drive completely clean and tried to do a fresh install from there, same problem wouldnt even boot into the install process. So i took the drive out and successful installed win7 on another computer and put it back into the original computer and now it just crashes every time on the windows loading screen.

For whatever reason, my motherboard/whatever part of the computer that is somehow broken does not like windows.. at all. I am now clueless as what to even try other pulling out components which wont be easy as I have custom water cooling on the cpu and gpu. Any ideas/suggestions??

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At the office we have a machine like that.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 18, 2014 8:47AM PST

It's last current version of Windows that runs is Vista. It's a nice travel laptop and every guru wants to try to get 7 on it. We won't pay them so we supply a HDD and let them at it. More challenging than a Gordian knot without a knife handy.
Bob

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Maybe not hardware? Vga driver?
by nosreme722 Jan 18, 2014 4:07PM PST

Back to square one..

So I figured out I could install win7 in safe mode and so I tried that, actually was able to boot into the install process (takes forever) and then from there once it restarts go back into safe mode and go into device manager and work from there, following this guide:

<span id="INSERTION_MARKER">http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/11273-install-windows-7-safe-mode.html
<span>

This makes me believe it has something to do with the vga driver or whatever it is, because it boots in safe mode (into the install process) and then restarts into regular mode of the install after I go into device manager and turn off, disable, unistall (all of the above) the vga connection. However, once it gets to the "completing installation" phase, the screen goes black for a sec and then 5 seconds later it crashes. Which leads me to believe its re-installing/enabling that corrupted vga connection.

This makes more since as I was installing/unistalling drivers for both nvidia and ati cards so something could have easily gotten corrupted there. So from here I'll try to load the nvidia drivers during the install, I almost expect it not to work. This is one vga connection from hell.

At this point I feel like this is just a self help blog for myself. haha i'll let you intent readers know if anything works.

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Wow..
by nosreme722 Jan 18, 2014 5:01PM PST

Wow.. Literally nothing works. At every single turn theres a new error.

Got to the device manager to update drivers for the vga controller, browsed to my usb drive but driver wouldnt show up. So I magically found the original gtx 470 driver install disk with nvidia 19x.xx drivers on it (very old) and tried to install that driver. "gtx 470" actually showed up, but guess what.. the driver wouldnt actually install. Said something about driver not being digitally signed. "The device is not configured properly" (code 1). "Reinstall the drivers for this device" (code 1Cool.

Eventually I found the latest drivers (33x.xx) on the usb and it wouldnt even try to load those. (doesnt contain compatible software driver for your device bla bla)

Looking at it now "Windows found the driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it" and then it tells me to check the manufacturers website for the latest drivers ha.

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right clk on the install file
by James Denison Jan 20, 2014 4:03AM PST

and then choose to install in compatibility mode or for older windows.

If you can get into Safe Mode again, go to Device Manager, find the video section, delete or uninstall everything under it. Probably go dark then, but if not, then reboot and let it go through the search and install process for the video all over again and maybe among the drivers it has will find the correct one this time. You may be using one video card and trying to run it on the other video card's driver files.

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Right click?
by nosreme722 Jan 20, 2014 8:10AM PST

Right click? My drives are wiped clean, I have nothing on them so I have to boot into the install process. I dont think theres a way for me to click or boot into compatibility mode.

I've tried unistalling/disabling and reinstalling the vga controller drivers and it actually works up until windows tries to re-enable it during the "completing installation" phase. At that point the screen goes black for a sec and then comes back (trying to reinstall the driver like you said I guess) and then 5 seconds later it crashes..

So, if somehow I can install a driver myself or get it to stay in safe mode then maybe it could work (but ive tried but both so I have no idea)

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