Paragon Virtualization Manager install put my system into an endless reboot loop

I just tried to install the Giveaway of the Day - Paragon Virtualization Manager 2009 Personal on an older system running Windows 2000 Pro (listed as compatible in the System Requirements). It went through the installation without a problem, then asked to Restart the system. I clicked yes and Rebooted, but now it reboots every time I log in and before the desktop loads.

I went through the reboot cycle a number times to make sure it wasn't just a normal part of the install.

I tried booting into safe mode with F8, and then I got a Blue Screen error STOP:0x0000000A IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL from ntoskrnl.exe.

I tried F8 Last Known Good Configuration and it just went into the Reboot cycle again.

Any advice is welcome. I would like to uninstall Paragon Virtualization Manager and repair my system, so I can boot into Windows and use the system normally again.

From the Blue Screen error, my first guess is that Paragon VM tried to install a virtual hard ware driver which conflicts with my actual hardware and IRQ settings.

I expect there might also be a Paragon VM Service running that could be causing a problem.

What's the best way to get into the system and undo the IRQ conflict and uninstall this software without being able to boot into the system?

I have used Bart PE and other boot disks before, but I'm not sure what is the best approach to undo the conflict/damage caused by Paragon and uninstall without causing more problems. Can I look at the Services.msc and disable services and startup items from a Boot disc?

Any advice or links to help would be greatly appreciated.

 

I would post that at this link - it is for support for today's giveaway:

http://twitter.com/paragonsoftware

 

Thanks I did reply to the Twitter post with a link to this thread, but I haven't gotten a reply.

I going to use a Boot CD and try to disable whatever Drivers, Services or Startup files Paragon installed and hope that there isn't more extensive damage.

 

Well, I started looking at it with UBCD4Win and it looks like I may have a hardware failure after all. I didn't have any problems before installing this, but all the reboots can't have helped.

I'm going to take it apart and check all the cables and connections and try to backup the files to another drive before I go back and try to solve the reboot problem and get rid of this software.

Ironically, I was going to use this software to create a backup image of the system. Now, I've got a bigger project than I was planning on.

 

Sorry to hear that. Good luck with it.

All the Paragon apps. work well for me - so not sure what was going on there.

Let me know how it goes and if you discover the root of the problem.

 

The driver installed is called Hotcore something [hotcorewin2k.sys ?] that varies by Windows version. msvcp60.dll, msvcrt.dll, prgiso.dll, & qtp-mt334.dll go into your Windows' system folder. Far as I can tell nothing is called/started during startup, & there are no Paragon services started with Windows, but I'm in 7 64 right now -- don't have anything running win2k to even check.

FWIW I'd suggest getting rid of those files I listed, & if it still won't go into Windows, check on-line & just follow whatever troubleshooting procedures or methods you find that look promising. In XP or Vista I'd suggest running a Windows repair install, but don't remember if win2k has that.

 

This looks like it is worth trying:

How to perform clean-boot troubleshooting for Windows 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/281770

 

Update: It turns out that my secondary drive was going bad. That was also the drive I used to download and install Paragon VM and which also held my pagefile. After disconnecting the bad drive, my system drive booted fine, although I had to make a new pagefile.

I've been trying to recover the bad drive with various means. The Windows tools I tried were unsuccessful, so I turned to Linux, ddrescue and PhotoRec. Although the drive is a goner, I have been able to recover some of my key files.

The interesting thing is that my secondary drive showed no signs of failure before I install Paragon VM. No sounds and no warnings or corrupted file errors beforehand. I downloaded Paragon VM to the drive and installed it, then when I rebooted, the drive was nearly dead.

During the recovery, I noticed that neither the Paragon VM downloaded installer nor the Program Files folder were among the recoverable files (no sign of them at all). However, the Paragon registry entries and other files that are on System drive are intact.

Now that I have a new backup of the system drive, I may try to re-install Paragon VM and attempt to make another system image. I'm not sure if it will install though, since it was a limited time offer, but maybe it will pick up the registry entries from my first installation attempt.

 

It will reinstall fine if you still have a copy of the .msi installer and your key.

If you lost the key you can get it from the My Account section :

http://www.paragon-software.com/login

 

After recovering most of my key files, I decided to give Paragon VM another chance. This time I was able to successfully install and reboot without any problems. I made a couple test images of my system drive which are now running in VirtualBox. The Adjust P2V for running in a VM option didn't work for me. I used some registry settings and system drivers from a VirtualBox Windows imaging guide and that finally worked.

I guess it was just a complete coincidence that the drive failed just after installing Paragon VM. Now it seems to be working reasonably well, although my first virtual drive image tests created with Paragon's default settings wouldn't boot.

Although the recovery has been a hassle and some files are lost, I'm glad to finally have a working image of the old system. Next, I'm going to try Disk2vhd on a different system running XP and see how that works out.