Help! OS Selector destroyed vista!

[squimmy]

Help!

Just installed Disk Director and when it came to the OS Selector installation it said something about moving windows to LOSTFILE/Windows and Program Files to LOSTFILE/Program Files and now I can't boot vista! It goes to the vista boot menu but when I select vista it tells me winload is missing. Help!

[MudCrab]

Normally, OSS does not install automatically when you install DD. Did it or did you choose to install OSS after you installed DD?

You shouldn't get the winload.exe error unless a partition change was made.

What version and build of DD/OSS are you using?

Did you install OSS from Vista (it sounds like you did)?

Have you tried uninstalling OSS from the DD CD?

Do you have a Microsoft OEM or Retail Vista DVD?

[squimmy]

No, I chose to "deactivate OS Selector" - I might of had it installed a while ago. Anyway, OS Selector moved Program Files and Windows to LOSTFILE/ for some reason. I booted into an UBUNTU live CD and moved them back, which was surprising because I didn't even realize Ubuntu could read/write Vista NTFS partitions.

Bummer - just restarted after one successful boot into vista and scan disk is doing something. This isn't good....

[squimmy]

It's just repeating the "Deleting an index entry from index $0 of file 25" over and over and over and over and over and over again. Eep.

[MudCrab]

I haven't heard of OSS moving any files to LOSTFILE/ before. What files did it move?

Can you boot to your Vista DVD and select to repair? If you can, can you select the Command Prompt and run a chkdsk /f on the Vista partition to see if it will fix it?

[squimmy]

chkdsk was just running. But it said "Deleting an index entry from index $0 of file 25" over and over again. Didn't progress, just kept on printing those lines.

It's working - but I don't have much confidence. Does DD/OS Selector have a history of corrupting vista installations? Spybot Search and Destroy, which I just ran has told me that "C:\Windows\ehome is corrupt. Run chdsk". Chkdsk won't work though!

What options am I left with?

[MudCrab]

I have used DD and OSS a lot and I've never run into either of those problems. I would suggest either restoring from a backup or running chkdsk /f from a Vista DVD or BartPE CD (I'm assuming XP's chkdsk will work on a Vista partition) if it won't work from Windows.

Do you get the same error message over and over if you run chkdsk again? Did it complete the previous time(s)?

If you have any files of value on the drive, you might also want to create a backup image of the drive before you proceed any further as it may cause more corruption. Or at least copy off any important files to another place (like an external USB drive).

[squimmy]

Well, I left chkdsk on overnight and it seems as though it completed because when I checked it the next day vista had booted.

But ehome is still corrupt, and when I reboot, chkdsk starts all over again.

[MudCrab]

If you run chkdsk /f from the Command Prompt when booted to the Vista DVD (under Repair), does it complete successfully?

Boot to Vista DVD (press a key when asked).
Press Next on the first screen.
Select the Repair option.
Don't select any automatic repair options, just click the Next button.
Select the Command Prompt from the choices.
Run chkdsk /f on the corrupt partition.

If you then run it again, does it complete successfully without errors or does it still find the same errors?

Have you tried running the Boot Repair option from the Vista DVD?