Vista Booting Problem

[Rockwall]

Heya, just a quick slightly complicated question i need to ask.

Im working on a friends computer, normally i dont get stumped very often, But im hoping to get some assistance.

The Machine :
Gateway M-Series Laptop.. Model No. SA1
250GB HDD
AMD Turion X2 Pro.
Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

Problem that is occuring is im getting a Boot configuration data read error. Ok so no problem there, pop in the Recovery CD and load the recovery console. Now here is were it gets messed up. After checking for windows installations, it finds some errors and details them out to me and asks me to restart to fix them. Awesome that was easy. Wrong. Upon trying to restart it gives me an error saying Cannot Save Startup Options. The dialog box that is presented to me is blank, meaning there is no windows installations nor harddrives loaded. So i find the drivers for the HDD and load them, and it does the same thing. I have tried EVERY SINGLE Drivers located in windows vista and none of them work. I tried bootrec/bcdrebuild and that comes up with an error as well. I havent went as far as manually rebuilding the bcd, nor reinstalling (Which i really dont wanna do) Im just asking if any of you have some idea whats going on. Sorry i kinda wrote this fast, if you need anymore detailed information i can post it as soon as possible.
Thanks
Rockwall

 

[Atomic Rooster]

I was going to suggest a repair install, but I don't think that's possible using the Gateway recovery CD. It sounds like it may have hosed the boot.cfg when it was attempting to repair those errors. Have you ran a HDD diagnostics to ensure the drive is OK?

 

[Rockwall]

Well it says Gateway on it, but it allows you to do repair and also install vista but along the lines if it is like the install cd for vista i dunno. i ran a S.M.A.R.T test on the drive and everything came back fine Indicated using SpeedFan 92% Fitness 90% Performance. Is there anyway, hooking this HDD to my computer (Which I already have) i could repair or rebuild the BCD on my computer?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

If it allows you to do a repair install like a regular Vista DVD does, that would be the way to go. I really can't tell you if you could repair the boot sector with the drive connected to your computer.

This may help you: Gateway Support - Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) on Windows Vista Backup Media


Check your PM.

 

[Rockwall]

Ok, Im starting to think this is a hardware issue, do to the fact that when i came dry on all my resources on fixing this laptop, i just decided to reinstall windows. Sometimes i get to the screen that shows the partitions and when i select the partition vista is already on, a little note appears on the bottom of the dialog box that says along the lines of..... Windows cannot boot from this partition, please insure that your harddrive controller is enabled in bios. (Which is stupid because there is no option in the bios to enable or disable the HD controller.) So after restarting to check I go yet again to install windows but low and behold, now its saying that there is no CD/DVD driver installed and it needs one to install windows (Sure is a smart computer har har). Trying every file i can to load the drivers for it to no avail. Im coming to think that for some unkown reason the computer is losing drivers at random then getting them back. Trying Repair option doesn't work either because it cannot find the drivers for the HD which apparently exist but it doesnt acknowledge them. Next, for some unkown and COMPLETELY frustrating reason, i cant get this thing to bring up windows advanced boot menu to boot into safe mode. No matter how hard I mash F8, or at what time it doesnt bring me to select Boot From safe mode. Ive also tried while in the recovery console, bootrec/Rebuildbcd which doesnt work, it will find the windows installation but then when i select Y, or N, or All it says the specificed installation or something doesnt exist..... (Wow) So what do you think i should do guys?, im considering finding the CMOS battery and yanking it for 4 hours to reset the bios and see if that may work. Also does anyone know how to flash the bios for this laptop, the bios has no menu to select bios flashing or anything.
Thanks

Atomic Rooster Lmao PM checked and corrected...