Hi. My PC exploded. W7 Boot Configuration Data error (0xc0000000f)

[rossmum]

Basically it was a hot day and I kinda stupidly played APB for 6 hours straight without keeping an eye on my PC's temp. The game suddenly hung out of nowhere, Ctrl Alt Del did nothing, I figured "oh shit it's too hot, better shut it off and let it cool a bit". Hit reset, just as I normally do when my PC locks for whatever reason, only this time I'm greeted with a black screen of absolute soul-crushing doom.

Error code 0xc0000000f, "An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data". Booted off a USB which I'd converted to act as an install disc, clicked through to the startup repair tool. Said it had done stuff (found faulty boot sector, remedied it). Hit finish, PC restarted, same black screen. Have tried manually doing things with the bootrec.exe tool in command prompt, didn't get very far with that. I went to follow one step which is "C: cd boot" and it told me it couldn't find it. Just about shit myself in horror at the implication of that, opened diskpart, listed, found my 1.5tb drive there so it knows there is a drive. Planning on checking to see if I can blunder around the drive with command promp from the repair menu and c/d whether my files (or any files at all) are still in any recognisable state; HDD is definitely spinning but is hot to the touch, worried I may have fried it. If that is the case then fuck me dead I hope someone, somewhere can recover those files. Ugh.

If anyone has any ideas, any experience with this error, please help. It's pretty common but the answers I'm seeing posted on forums and W7 help sites are either vague or don't work for me. Attempting a reinstall would be my next major step I guess, no way I want to reformat C: without getting files off but the problem is that C: is just one of three physical and one virtual partitions on my single 1.5TB main drive and I am fucking terrified of anything bad befalling it.

Sorry for the word soup, I am shitting fucking bricks.

[rossmum]

Oh and out of desperation more than any logical suspicion, I tried a system restore to the day before it exploded. No luck.

[rossmum]

c:\dir lists fuck all, h: gives me device not ready, g:\dir lists files and folders I recognise so clearly at least some portion of my hdd is not cooked

e/ for clarification, i have 2 hdds. one is my 1.5tb internal. there is the system partition, c: which is either 40 or 80gb iirc, d: is a virtual drive (the .vcd file is stored on h: ), g: and h: are identical partitions at something like 500gb each, fuck i forget. they're the biggest ones though. second drive is my little 150(?) gb external (i: ) which had its usb bridge fried so it now lives inside my pc on an empty hdd rack shelf as an ersatz internal. losing c: would be enough to severely piss me off for at least the next month or six, losing d:, g:, h: or any combination thereof would send me into an apoplectic rage as my most recent backup was late 2008. i seriously cannot imagine the results of it and i never want to have to.

[rossmum]

I am terrified of breaking things worse but someone who is good at computer (and I mean it, someone who knows their shit), please tell me if just straight up reinstalling Windows (without a format if I can get away with it) is a safe course of action. Not really worried whether it will fix it or not, just whether or not it will fuck my files. Going to leave it alone until I get some replies going, I don't trust myself.

[Patrickssj6]

Probably one of the bridges on the motherboard overheated thus giving false data about HDD etc. Take the HDDs out and try them on another computer.

[=sw=warlord]

installing windows on a drive which already has windows will not force you to lose files unless the drive is absolutely full.
Even then it won't simply over write the files it would simply ask you to make room or use a partition with enough space.
When you do re-install over windows it makes a folder called windows.old where all your old files will reside.

If your drive is that hot I would wait for it to cool down and let everything else cool down as well.
Heat can effect a drives magnetism in that it can demagnetize metals but usually only at high temperatures, you're likely to be safe but do let it cool down.

[rossmum]

Could be an issue; don't have another computer to put it in. Will see if I can find a volunteer somewhere nearby though I guess. I'm going to go back on my previous and do one last thing for the night, which is run scandisk. I know at least my G: partition is in good enough shape to list folders so I'm hoping the same can be said of everything else. If C got wiped it's a headache - had a lot of stuff floating on my desktop and like a years' worth of "look at this later" in my sticky notes - but most of my really important data was elsewhere, thankfully.

Of course this would fucking happen like two weeks after my computer-rain-man housemate moves out. :suicide:

e/ Also I should note that the drive feels hot to the touch after only about an hour, maybe two hours of dicking about trying to recover Windows. The Disaster happened like 50-60 hours ago and my PC has been off for most of that time. I have no actual legit means of guaging my HDD's temp because I don't really stick my hand in my PC while it's running so I have nothing to benchmark how long it takes for it to become painful if I hold my hand there vs normal.

[rossmum]

Some more dir-fishing in cmd. Found out that c: is actually showing the sys reserved, d: shows my external (previously i: ), e: shows my actual c: drive (windows install), f: shows g:, g: actually shows h:. All my data is there including my windows install, it just has no fucking clue what's what, presumably why it won't boot. Also explains why it was showing c: as having fuck all for files. Interesting. Does this make it any easier to fix, or is it only good news in that my drive isn't fucked but windows has done something screwy?

e/

When I ran bootrec.exe earlier through cmd and tried to do:


* bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup

* c:

* cd boot

* attrib bcd -s -h -r

* ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

* bootrec /RebuildBcd


...it wigged out at cd boot. Knowing what we do now, is it safe to assume I want to actually go e: cd boot instead of c: cd boot or something? Just clutching at straws

[Zeph]

Since you're in such a panic, burn a linux/unix OS to a CD and boot your OS from it. In there, you'll be able to find just what's still around on your hard drives without possibly killing anything on the disks. Once there, you'll have the chance to back up your most important files, then your important files, then any useless crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD

[JackalStomper]

This doesn't help the problem at hand but for future reference having two drives helps prevent this problem.

Tiny one for the windows OS install and whatever other driver-related BS you need.

Giant one for everything else, including game installs.

Then when windows explodes just reformat the small disk. Still a hassle but not a nightmare of data loss that a single disk would be.

[staticchanger]

I agree with Zeph, the first thing I would do is boot into a LiveCD/USB stick. If you don't have a CD drive check out Unetbootin (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) it formats a USB stick with just about any linux distro you can imagine. I always keep one with Ubuntu on hand as they are invaluable in situations such as these. Good luck hope you get it worked out!

[Rentafence]

If you don't have a CD drive check out Unetbootin (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/) it formats a USB stick with just about any linux distro you can imagine.

Unetbootin works with Windows installs too.

[rossmum]

Since you're in such a panic, burn a linux/unix OS to a CD and boot your OS from it. In there, you'll be able to find just what's still around on your hard drives without possibly killing anything on the disks. Once there, you'll have the chance to back up your most important files, then your important files, then any useless crap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD
Thankfully the one DOS command I remember offhand is "dir". Using that I figured C: is pointing to my sys reserve partition, D: is pointing to my (former) external I:, E: is pointing to my actual Windows C: drive, F: to G: and G: to H:. Folder names and files listed off so as far as I could tell from a quick skim of the list, nothing is missing.


This doesn't help the problem at hand but for future reference having two drives helps prevent this problem.

Tiny one for the windows OS install and whatever other driver-related BS you need.

Giant one for everything else, including game installs.

Then when windows explodes just reformat the small disk. Still a hassle but not a nightmare of data loss that a single disk would be.
Yeah, I'm toying with this. Eventually I'll need to replace the 1.5 I have now because G: and especially H: are growing very rapidly, but for now a smaller drive for windows and freeing up my old C: as a new partition for random shit seems the way to go.

Looks like I'm going to the computer store tomorrow.