computron
asked on
How do I repair a corrupt ecache.sys file in Windows Vista Ultimate x64
I have a Sun Ultra 20 M2 that has been running Vista Ultimate x64 on the primary SATA drive and Solaris 10 and Puppy Linux on the second SATA drive. I mostly run the machine in Vista but was on Solaris 10 to install the xVM Virtual Box.
When I rebooted the machine to come up in Vista again, I received an error that the system will not boot because of a missing or corrupt \windows\system32\drivers\
I have performed the windows repair at least 7 times, and have gone into the console an tried replacing the file from a working systems and deleting the file all together.
I have also tried a system restore to the last INSTALL recover point and and incremental before that to no avail. I almost pulled the trigger on an install but did not have an option to do a "dirty install" . Although a new install will save the previous version of Windows in windows.old, the pain of all of the updates from day one are quite daunting.
MS KB seems to be absent of any information on this subject matter and the one solution that I was able to find out in the wild did not work for me.
I will resist the urge to gripe here but I find it a lot easier to pull a UNIX box out of the ditch than a Windows box. Vista almost had me because I have not had a problem with it since my beta test and even put it on several of my personal boxes.
There should be a way to easily restore "all" of the critical files needed to boot a system!
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated
When I rebooted the machine to come up in Vista again, I received an error that the system will not boot because of a missing or corrupt \windows\system32\drivers\
I have performed the windows repair at least 7 times, and have gone into the console an tried replacing the file from a working systems and deleting the file all together.
I have also tried a system restore to the last INSTALL recover point and and incremental before that to no avail. I almost pulled the trigger on an install but did not have an option to do a "dirty install" . Although a new install will save the previous version of Windows in windows.old, the pain of all of the updates from day one are quite daunting.
MS KB seems to be absent of any information on this subject matter and the one solution that I was able to find out in the wild did not work for me.
I will resist the urge to gripe here but I find it a lot easier to pull a UNIX box out of the ditch than a Windows box. Vista almost had me because I have not had a problem with it since my beta test and even put it on several of my personal boxes.
There should be a way to easily restore "all" of the critical files needed to boot a system!
Any assistance will be greatly appreciated
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SOLUTION
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ASKER
I did resolve the problem last night and was able to get the system booted.
The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the system:
John, Thanks for the info on Bart PE. I have not used it in a long time but will see if I can build a Vista PE with it. I am also going to try and build one with the VistaPE tool that I found. It has been educational, especially the difference in structure between XP and Vista for this olde UNIX guy!
The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the system:
- Installed Vista Ultimate x64 of a secondary machine (AMD Athlon 64 laptop)
- Installed Vista SP1 on the secondary machine.
- Copied the \windows\system32\drivers\
ecache.sys file to a thumb drive(Note: File size after SP1 install was 151 K). - Booted the ailing machine from a Vista Ultimate x64 DVD
- Launched the repair option and let the attempt another automatic repair.
- Attempted a standard reboot after the repair but the system failed again.
- Rebooted the system again and exercised the repair option again.
- After the repair attempt completed, I closed the window and opened a command shell.
- Performed an
-
- XCOPY {USB THUMB DRIVE}\ecache.sys c:\windows\system32\driver
s command
- XCOPY {USB THUMB DRIVE}\ecache.sys c:\windows\system32\driver
- Rebooted the machine again.
- The machine took longer than usual to boot and notified me that system restore had rolled back the system to a previous date.
- I rebooted again and the shut down took a real long time...(I almost powered the machine off because I thought that it was hung). It rebooted again and I am not doing analysis on the machine.
John, Thanks for the info on Bart PE. I have not used it in a long time but will see if I can build a Vista PE with it. I am also going to try and build one with the VistaPE tool that I found. It has been educational, especially the difference in structure between XP and Vista for this olde UNIX guy!
ASKER
John, Thanks for even answering the question. Although I did not use the Bart PE or Vista PE to fix the system, the information that you provided will be good for someone else and myself. I detailed how I fixed it in case someone else needs it and stumbles across the solution. I had a hard time finding any information on it at all!
Enjoy the points and thanks again!
Eunix - (Magnanimous Computron)
Enjoy the points and thanks again!
Eunix - (Magnanimous Computron)
ASKER
NOTE : This is the actual solution to the problem below. The information that John supplied is also very good information but I could not split the points between his answer and my own solution since I was the author of the question.
I did resolve the problem last night and was able to get the system booted.
The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the system:
I did resolve the problem last night and was able to get the system booted.
The following series of events resulted in the successful start of the system:
- Installed Vista Ultimate x64 of a secondary machine (AMD Athlon 64 laptop)
- Installed Vista SP1 on the secondary machine.
- Copied the \windows\system32\drivers\
ecache.sys file to a thumb drive(Note: File size after SP1 install was 151 K). - Booted the ailing machine from a Vista Ultimate x64 DVD
- Launched the repair option and let the attempt another automatic repair.
- Attempted a standard reboot after the repair but the system failed again.
- Rebooted the system again and exercised the repair option again.
- After the repair attempt completed, I closed the window and opened a command shell.
- Performed an
- XCOPY {USB THUMB DRIVE}\ecache.sys c:\windows\system32\driver
s command - Rebooted the machine again.
- The machine took longer than usual to boot and notified me that system restore had rolled back the system to a previous date.
- I rebooted again and the shut down took a real long time...(I almost powered the machine off because I thought that it was hung). It rebooted again and I am not doing analysis on the machine.
Thanks for the update, and I am glad you fixed it........
ASKER
BartPE seems to stop at XP. I found a Vista PE at http://www.vistape.net. I am going to try to build a Vista PE and make the modifications that you suggested and let you know.
Thanks,