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Windows vista wont start up update loop

4818 Views 18 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  jenae
Hello,

I hope someone can help me. I have an HP Laptop with Vista and AMD Turionx2.

When I turn on my computer it says windows update installing 3 out of 3 0% ... After a few moments it restarts, and does this over and over again. Safe mode same thing happens. Windows also cannot find system restore point. Everything in the F8 menu still takes me back to the same screen. I've tried Safe Mode, Safe Mode networking, and Safe Mode command.

I have seen similar posts but nothing can fix it that I've seen.
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Hi fabrownii,

When you tap F8, do you get an option to choose Safe Mode with command prompt?
Yes I do. I have done that and it goes through searching windows folders, when that completes and starts right back up to the update screen and goes through the loop one after the other. Thanks for the reply!
Hi fabrownii,

Try performing a repair install for Windows Vista and see if this process resolves your issue. Here is the link for the repair install instructions:

Repair Install For Vista - Vista Forums
At the command prompt can you type '%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe' (without the quotes) and hit Enter when you get to command prompt? If not, do you have your Vista DVD with you?

This should enable you to do a System Restore to go back to a point before the update.
TheGift,


Where do I type in the command at? As soon as I click safe mode with windows command prompt it goes to a black screen that says Loading Windows Files and it loads a bunch of Windows/system32/drivers files and at the bottom it says "Please wait......" It pauses there after loading the files for a couple minutes and then starts windows up in safe mode going directly to the same updating process.

What a pain this is lol
Sorry...Vista was preloaded and I do not have the DVD
Hi fabrownii,

Try performing a repair install for Windows Vista and see if this process resolves your issue. Here is the link for the repair install instructions:

Repair Install For Vista - Vista Forums


DB,

thanks for the reply but I do not have the CD or DVD to do this as it says in the link.
Hmm. Do you have your Vista DVD to hand?

[Edit] Sorry. Just seen you don't
No I do not have the DVD. This computer is fairly new too.
Haven't forgotten you, just trying something
Just tried a few things on Hiren's boot CD but no joy so far.

When you first boot, do you get an option to press F11 (and hold) to get to the HP Recovery Manager?
Yes I do. It gives me the option to do it or goto Advanced options?
There is quite a bit that can help you here. I'm just reading through it now so that I may be able to advise you through it. Do you have an external hard drive/ DVD (not internal) that you can back up your important documents to, should you need to?
No I do not have any external backup. But I am very hard headed and already started a system restore. It actually showed me system resotre points it did not show before. It is finalizing now, I will let you know the outcome. Thanks again!
Glad. Here is a pdf manual should you ever need it:-

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so..._YmPDw&usg=AFQjCNG5P6NUGeelO-OObORViOo7i_laZw

Clicking on the link should automatically download/ ask you to save the Recovery Manager PDF guide.

If it does restore your system back a few days, when it boots in to windows, change your Automatic Updates settings to 'Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them', until you have figured out what may be causing the issue. My guess in your anti-virus. Which one are you using?
If system restore fails...

On start-up tap F8, this time select the "repair computer" option. Enter Admin credentials if requested, then from the repair window select the command prompt option.

From the command prompt run these commands:

Code:
[font=lucida console]
diskpart

list volume 

[COLOR=#0066cc][I]This is so you can be sure what drive letter the recovery console is seeing the 
operating system drive as. Sometimes it can be different to what you expect.[/I][/COLOR]

exit

dism.exe /image:[B]<drive letter>[/B]:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions [COLOR=#0066cc]

[I]Swap [/i][B]<drive letter>[/B][i] with whatever drive letter you found previously.

This command should stop the "pending updates".

After you get the message: "The operation completed sucessfully" run the next one.[/I][/COLOR]

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=[B]<drive letter>[/B]:\ /offwindir=[B]<drive letter>[/B]:\Windows 
[/font]
Hopefully that allows you to boot into normal mode. If not, then we will look at other measures.
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Hi, good post from Reventon, some points. It does not always work, it is designed to stop the pending.xml and reconfigure some registry settings sometimes you have to do this manually and reload the Hive, hopefully we will not have to go that far.

Good point about what drive letter the OS is assigned in recovery environment (fortunately unlike Vista it is included in Seven's advanced boot menu) the normal way to discover the current OS drive letter in Vista and Seven is to type at the command prompt:-

bcdedit | find "osdevice" (press enter include the " )

Now if it works and you can get into Seven (if not post back and we will do it the hard way) you will have an update error on those updates to resolve this :-

Go to control panel, Folder options and under "View" put a check against " Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files"

Go to Start > Run (win +R key) type in

net stop wuauserv

Click OK
The Automatic Updates service will now stop

Next navigate to
WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore
Delete the DataStor.edb file


Open the WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder
Delete ALL contents of that folder

Open the WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\EventCache folder
Delete ALL contents of that folder

Close the window
Empty the Recycle Bin

Go back to Start > Run > type in

net start wuauserv

Click OK
The Automatic Updates service will now start

Restart your computer, don't forget to go to folder options (View) and undo what you have done.
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