Tried to install old game, now windows 8 won't boot up

pteo91

New Member
Messages
9
Hi

When I turn on my laptop, I get the following message right away:

"Your PC needs to be repaired. The boot configuration data file doesn't contain valid information for an operating system.

File: \BCD

Error code: 0xc0000098

You'll need to use the recovery tools on your installation media. If you don't have any installation media, contact your system administrator or PC manufacturer."

The only thing that I think could have caused this was the game(released in 2010, and Japanese) that I tried to install the previous day; the installation got stuck part way through, so I gave up. I also installed a Japanese language pack afterwards, but wasn't bothered to try installing the game again. Anyway the laptop was fine for the rest of the day, but when I turned it on the next morning, I got the above message.

Windows 8 was pre installed on my laptop, so I didn't have the installation disc/recovery tools. Pressing escape on this screen gives me a few options, but I don't think any of them will enable me to boot up. There was the option to run a diagnostics tool, which I ran, and it found no problems with any of the hardware at least.

I tried calling the manufacturer(DELL) and they said the problem was most likely caused by the game being incompatible with windows 8. Then they said that I could probably get it fixed if I pay a crap load of money for some software warranty plan(which I would rather not do).

Does anyone have any advice for this? Has anyone else had this problem with windows 8 and games? I still find it rather shocking that something small like this could harm the computer to the extent that it stops booting up(if the game was the cause of all this).

There are some really important files that I hadn't yet backed up, and I would at least like to rescue them...
frown.gif



 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
The most important thing here (IMO) is to rescue your data. To do this you'll need some sort of external media (a USB hard drive, flash drive, or even writable DVD's). You'll also need a bootable rescue disk of some sort (such as the Ultimate Boot CD or a Live Linux distribution). Use those to copy your data off the hard drive.

Next (with the computer off), press and hold F2 while turning the computer on. Let it access the Dell UEFI menu
Let us know what it says there (I'll check on this at work today if I have a Dell in the shop).

Also, do you have access to another Win8 system (of the same "bittage" - 32 or 64 bit)?
If so, please make a System Repair disc by pressing "WIN" and "R" to open the Run dialog...type "RECDISC" (without the quotes) and press ENTER (we'll use this to attempt to repair the boot files)

Finally, once back in Windows, create the recovery disks ASAP!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
I pressed F2 when turning on the computer and here is what it showed:

View attachment 22542

I'm afraid I don't have access to another windows 8 system. But I called up DELL and they said they would send me a Windows 8 installation disk, which I assume will have the option to repair the computer. Should I still try using a bootable rescue disk like you recommended, or should I just wait for the installation disk to arrive?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
One more question - is this an upgrade to Win8 (Win8 OEM's are required to have UEFI - not a BIOS)?

The most important thing is to recover your files with a bootable rescue disk. Here's what may happen:
- you may fix the system and all will be well (files will be OK)
- something may happen during one of the many different procedures - and your files could get deleted.
- you may not be able to fix it, so you'll have to wipe the hard drive to reinstall Windows (and you'll lose your files)

Once you've recovered your files, then you can get aggressive with the repair and (hopefully) recover the system without damage.

Also, it depends on the installation disk as to what will work/not work on bootup. We'll have to see that when it arrives.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
By upgrade, do you mean an upgrade from windows 7? I got my laptop brand new with Windows 8 pre installed on it.

By the way, I downloaded ultimate boot CD from majorgeeks and burned it to a CD. I haven't tried it yet, but is there any chance it could do any harm to my computer, or is it totally safe?

Also not sure how to use it. It seems to have a lot of tools, so what do I use for specifically recovering files? Is there a tutorial for it anywhere?

EDIT: Okay, I managed to boot from the ultimate boot cd, and tried running parted magic, but it got stuck at this part:

LZMA data is corrupt

--system halted
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
When using parted magic, it's possible to cause damage to your files. Be VERY, VERY careful!!!
I would suggest either FileLink or UBCD FreeDOS

If not comfortable with DOS based programs, try either Knoppix or the Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows ( UBCD for Windows )
The Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows contains xplorer2 Lite ( xplorer² Windows File Manager (Explorer replacement) )and excellent file management tool with a GUI.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
When using parted magic, it's possible to cause damage to your files. Be VERY, VERY careful!!!
I would suggest either FileLink or UBCD FreeDOS

If not comfortable with DOS based programs, try either Knoppix or the Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows ( UBCD for Windows )
The Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows contains xplorer2 Lite ( xplorer² Windows File Manager (Explorer replacement) )and excellent file management tool with a GUI.

Okay, I'll try the Ultimate Boot Disk for Windows. But are you sure it is compatible with Windows 8? The date on the newest version is [FONT=Lucida Grande, Bitstream Vera Sans, Verdana, Lucida, Helvetica, sans-serif]0[/FONT]6/22/10, so it's quite old.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
It doesn't need to be compatible with Win8 - as the disk will boot to another OS other than Windows.
Worst case is that previous versions may be lost (depending on what operations you choose to perform) because there's a different way that they are handled in Win8. See this link for more detailed description: https://www.google.com/search?q=win...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

In short, if you just copy the files that you need from the hard drive to your removable media - then everything should be fine.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
Okay, I tried running the ultimate boot CD for Windows(which I built using my Windows XP sp3 CD), but it isn't working... I managed to boot from the CD, then I selected "Launch ultimate boot CD for windows". It showed the start up screen for windows XP(with the black background and the logo and the blue loading bar), then after a few moments it went to a blue screen of death, with the error:

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78CE528, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Does the CD have any other options that might be useful for this situation? And also, I should be receiving the installation disk for Windows 8 tomorrow. I'm not sure if there's anything else worth trying before then...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
Start by running this hard drive diagnostic: Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure
It's beginning to sound like the hard drive is on it's last legs.

FWIW - data recovery at this point can get very, very expensive. You may want to start pricing out different data recovery solutions. Most will run $500 up to $2000 for an unreadable hard drive (they have to take it apart and move the platters to another, working hard drive in a "clean" room).
Good luck!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
Okay, I might try running that procedure. But I don't understand how the hard drive could be on its last legs when I only got the computer about four months ago; when I run the diagnostics option on the boot manager screen(which I get to by pressing F12 when turning on the computer) the results show that there is nothing wrong with any of the hardware...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
If it passed the Dell diagnostics it's probably not a physical problem with the hard drive (although I don't like the in-built diagnostics - as they appear to run too fast to be very thorough).

Possibilities that still exist (among the more likely) are:
- a controller problem (a hardware piece on the motherboard)
- a driver problem
- cabling problems between the hard drive and the mobo
- Windows settings issues (such as the BCD is corrupt)
- other hardware issues
- malware

If, as you say, it's not a hardware problem - then why is it BSOD'ing with programs that are known to be stable with Windows?
And why are these BSOD's pointing at hard drive issues (things such as "Inaccessible boot device" (the hard drive is the boot device) and errors in ntfs.sys (the file system located on the hard drive?

As for repairing the BCD, we can't do that without the ability to boot into the Windows repair environment - and you'll need a bootable disk or a startup repair disk to do that.

Finally, another indication that this is a hard drive problem is the inability to get your data from the hard drive. I backup 5 to 10 hard drives a week at work - and only see these sort of problems when there is a problem with the hard drive (we take the hard drives out of the computer and connect them to our computer). Using a bootable disk (such as the UBCD and the UBCD for Win) should be a simple process of booting from the disk and copying the files - yet your system has problems with this process.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
The Windows 8 recovery disk has arrived, but the refresh/repair options aren't working; when I try to refresh, I get the error:

"The drive where Windows is installed is locked"

Unless there is a way around this, it looks like I'll have to reinstall Windows 8 from scratch... The good news is, the disk has a command prompt option, which my dad(who is experienced with DOS) used to copy my important files from the computer to an external hard drive.

However, if I reinstall Windows 8, I will probably need the product key, which I think I have lost. It was sent to me in an email when I bought the laptop, but I have lost that email, and I can't find the product key on the packaging or the laptop itself either. Is there a way to find out what it was, and if not, does it cost anything to request a new one(from Microsoft or DELL)?

EDIT: I have read in several places that I don't need a product key when reinstalling with the recovery media if Windows 8 was pre installed on the computer. I hope this is true.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
Okay, I have decided to try and do a clean install of Windows 8, following these instructions How to perform a clean install of Windows 8 - Microsoft Windows Help, but I get stuck at the "where do you want to install Windows?" part; I get a list of the Drive 0 partitions, and at the bottom an error that says "Windows can't be installed on drive 0 partition 1". Clicking it gives me the following details:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.

Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS.

Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition is an EFI system partition (ESP)

Since I'm hardly an expert on computers, I really have no idea what it's asking me to do, or how to do it, or what any of these things that it's mentioned even are... I'm starting to worry that I might not even be able to reinstall from scratch. PLEASE HELP

EDIT: Also, selecting the other partitions(there are six) also gave the "Windows can't be installed on drive 0" message, although the details are different for each.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
Deleting all of the partitions worked! Thank you very much, my computer is working fine now:)

Just a bit scared to install games on my laptop now...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
Now that you know how to delete the partitions, there shouldn't be any problems.
Install the games now - before you have a lot of time invested in the installation (that way you can wipe it and start over if necessary).

Good luck!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8.1Pro - Finally!!!
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Samsung/NP780
    CPU
    Came with the laptop (i7 of some sort)
    Motherboard
    Pretty sure that it has one, but haven't checked inside the case!
    Memory
    upgraded to 12 gB from 8 gB
    Graphics Card(s)
    has switchable - Intel/ATI - Used wrong drivers, now ATI card is inop :( Will have to fix it soon!
    Sound Card
    I'm nearly deaf, so this isn't used often
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Touchscreen on laptop/32" Toshiba on HDMI (laid the Sharp TV on a mouse and cracked the screen!)
    Screen Resolution
    800x600
    Hard Drives
    One Samsung 1tB drive - 5400 rpm. Gonna switch to a 7200/10000 rpm or an SSD (if I can find $500 for a 1tB SSD!)
    - Switched to 500 gB Samsung 840 series SSD - WOW!!!
    PSU
    Why do we ask this for laptops?
    Case
    Silver with a neat Samsung logo
    Cooling
    sub-par, gotta get around to working on it soon Worked on it - still sub-par! :(
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Natural - the same one I've used since it orignally came out around 1995
    Mouse
    no Mouse - Trackball!!!!
    Internet Speed
    too slow when I'm waiting for a download to finish
    Browser
    Yes, I use this (Firefox mostly, w/IE next most)
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Windows Firewall
    Other Info
    I'm handsome and a snappy dresser :0)
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