DV6 and BSOD

[KellyWilke]

Hello all,

I have a client that has a dv6- (not sure of the number after it, cannot find it) that came pre-loaded with WIndows 7 64-bit OS.  When you boot up, it will go to the WIndows splash page and before the four Windows colors of the logo come together it will give a BSOD of 0x0000007b (0xfffff88009a9928...)

I have looked through many different web sites and it states that it is a hard drive error (went through and did the hard drive diagnostics in the BIOS and it is fine) or that you need to change the AHCI to IDE in the BIOS (cannot do that in this BIOS, there is no option to do that).

I have tried to do a system restore in the HP recovery manager but it will come back after 30 minutes that it cannot do this.

I have tried to do a startup repair and it will not do this, gives an error that this cannot be done and then it will go to the HP recovery manager

I do not want to format the PC and reinstall the OS since I am not sure what is crucial data and what isn't for the user.

I have a feeling that it is simply a file for the hard drive in WIndows got corrupted.  Is there anyway to reinstall the OS WITHOUT removing any of the data files that are currently on the system?
And no, the user did not do any type of backup in HP recovery manager so I could do a restore.

Also, and I find this weird, that when I do the go to command prompt in HP recovery manager, that the OS is on the D drive and the C drive is a 123 meg partition that only has the file boomgr on it.

Thanks,

Kelly W.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Kelly:

If the OS will not repair, alternatively, with your client's permission, I recommend you remove the HDD and place it in a notebook size SATA to USB HDD enclosure, copy the C and D folders from the HDD, reinstall it and then reload the OS.

You have tried everything I would have tried and I can think of no other way to handle the situation other than getting a W7 OEM x64 bit disk and using that to install the OS.

If you have one, do not format, Just let W7 install on the existing partition with Windows. It will create a Windows.old file where all the client's files will still be accessible once the new installation of W7 is completed. Then you can copy and paste the files back onto the new installation.

Once you get everything straightened out, I would name the boot OS drive C:\ and the other D:\

If you want to know exactly what model you are dealing with, flip it over. On the sticker with the serial number is also a product number.

Type the product number in the box at the link below and you should be presented with the support and driver page for the PC, which you are going to need to load the hardware drivers, if you don't use the recovery disks.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/siteHome?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us

Paul

[KellyWilke]

The only sticker on the bottom side is the WIndows OS 7 sticker, no other SN or product stickers.

Since the OS is supposed to be WIndows 7, if I am able to copy the files over to something else, shouldn't I be able to run the system reinstall from the HP recovery manager?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, you can reinstall the OS from the recovery manager if you remove the files.

The system recovery will wipe everything out., which was why I was giving you an alternative way to reinstall the OS w/o doing a destructive recovery if you did not elect to remove the drive, and copy the contents off of it.

Go into the BIOS and on the system information screen, there should be a more specific model number and serial number, or once you get the thing running again, you can see if the auto scan will ID the model.

http://h20614.www2.hp.com/ediags/gmd/welcome.aspx?lc=en&cc=us

Paul

[KellyWilke]

Okay this is a dv6-3172 unit.

Okay I goofed kind of badly and not sure if this can be undone.  I used a partition manager and deleted the C drive (which was a partition of 125 meg).  Tried to boot up and found out quickly that must have been the recovery manager partition(still do not understand why they would have the recovery manager partition as the C drive and the main OS partition as the D drive).

Whenever I try to boot directly to the D drive it goes to a memtest screen

So I need to find out how to get a copy of the recovery manager software and how to install it to the partition (remember Windows will not boot up at all).

I have a feeling that when I was trying to do a system restore from a previous restore point that it was trying to restore to this little C drive and not to the D drive.

Could this whole issue be because of a rootkit (and yes I ran Avira boot CD and it did find a rootkit and supposedly "fixed" it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kelly W.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Kelly:

I hope you got the files off there...

Apparently the owner or the virus hosed up the drive letters, because on all HP PC's the boot drive is C:\, and the recovery partition is D:\.

If you deleted the recovery partition, then the recovery manager software is useless because all that does is get the recovery partition to reinstall the factory image on the C:\ drive.

Anyway, if you can't boot to C:\ (D:\) you wouldn't be able to install the recovery manager software even if you could get it, which you can't.

I don't see any way out except to purchase a set of recovery disks for the notebook, which will bring the PC to it's "out of the box" condition software-wise, and recreate the recovery partition.

There are 2 problems:

1. There are 4 models of that notebook with different suffixes and you need to know which one is which in order to get the right recovery disk set.

2. I don't see on the 4 models' support and driver page that you can even get recovery disks for them, so you may have to contact HP to see if they can be had.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/pfinder?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&tool=&query=dv6-3172+

You may have to end up getting a full OEM version of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (costs $100), and installing that from scratch.

Paul