My trusty old Dell desktop has stopped working. The error message on screen says “An unexpected error has occurred. Status Oxc0000034

The PC was bought new by me, I’ve got all the discs and Windows numbers for Vista etc. The on screen advice is to put the recovery disc in which I’ve done but it won’t boot from this either. It runs the CD up and loads the files. From there an error message appears stating that there’s a file missing. There’s a series of diagnostic self tests that I let the PC run through. That took 36 hours and that revealed everything apart from the surround sound is working !

Everything important is backed up apart from a few documents that I can do without.

Before I start taking the thing apart to check for loose cables etc, any ideas ?

TIA, Dave.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/927391

Cheers Frankenstein.

Aye, tried this 😀 It was one of the first hits on Google. I can’t get past the error message screen to the next step. It won’t boot from either the HDD or CD.

I love a challenge 😀

Check your bios settings- is it set to boot dvd or hard drive etc.

If you’re not losing any info, I would reinstall Windows either repair or create a new partition to install Windows.

Then copy the old documents/word files to the new partition.

Delete the old partition. Add the disk space to the new partition.

Leave a large storage usb drive to back up your documents next time too.

Drac to the rescue?

It won’t boot from either the HDD or CD

This may not be good. Is it trying to boot from the DVD when inserted, or do you mean it’s just not finding the drive to boot from?

Right, it’s obviously set to boot from the HDD first then the optical drive. It comes up with the error screen before even attempting to boot from the HDD. If I then follow the prompts I can get it to read the files from the recovery disc. IE the optical drive is running. The scroll bar takes approx 30 to move all the way to the right after which something that looks like a Vista background screen appears. There’s no writing on there and no functionality.

If you’re not losing any info, I would reinstall Windows either repair or create a new partition to install Windows.

I’ve probably reached the limit of my ken. I’ve got an old IDE caddy but the drives in this PC are different, so no prospect of dragging the files off there either. Possibly a job for the repair shop. 🙁

The recovery disc has Vista on it but I reach an impasse pretty quickly with the above.

You need to access the bios before it starts trying and failing to boot from your hdd.
Once in bios there will be a setting where you can change the boot priority, this needs to be set to boot from cd first then hdd.

Save the settings, put your windows disk in and reboot.. It should boot from Windows cd then.. Then you’ll be able to run the repair utility on the windows disk to copy any missing or corrupted windows system files.

You can use your pc as a recovery caddy if you download something like Ubuntu linux and install it to a usb stick. Go to pendrivelinux , download the installer and it will do the rest. You then simply boot up the pc and run the usb as a live os (do not install) enabling you to browse your old hard drive and transfer over whatever you need to alternative storage.

Its honestly very easy and will save you humping a computer to the repair shop, paying out money and then realising you have to look the tech in the eye when he hands over a disc full of cached pron you forgot you had even looked at.

Yeah, try a bootable USB with Linux. If your recovery CD is hanging because it can’t read the HDD properly then that may be a workaround. If it’s hanging because your motherboard is dead, then it won’t help much.

Have you tried reseating all the connections, RAM etc?

Power switched off at socket but still plugged-in to earth the chassis while you work on it, no synthetics and bare arms!

Latest update. I’ve given the casing a good clean out, undone and remade all available connections. No change. I can access the bios and change the boot order, I’ve been in there already and will try this tomorrow. I’m beginning to suspect the MB 🙁

As a last resort, assuming you have another PC available, you could try downloading the Win7 or Win10 ISO files from Microsoft and creating a bootable USB flash disk and seeing if it will boot from that.

If it’s the motherboard the the easiest way to keep working is to just whip the HDD out and whack it in another machine. I’d do a full backup AS SOON as you have any access to the disk, if you try some software repair and lose the files at that point you won’t be happy!

I think what you could do with is a neighbour with a computer to test the parts in.

I am afraid it’s unlikely to be me, willing though I am, as I no longer live in the UK.

Holst, what exactly will that achieve given the OP is running Vista? Live linux USB boot is what’s needed here.

Could be a part attached is dodgy e.g. Memory.

Shouldn’t the motherboard beep indicating what’s dodgy?

Thing is spending hours on the machine when you could be productive and earn £££ to buy a new unit etc.

Holst, what exactly will that achieve given the OP is running Vista? Live linux USB boot is what’s needed here.

He’s trying to boot from a DVD drive. My guess is that it’s a MB problem, but it’s possible that the recovery disk is damaged or that there’s a problem affecting the HDD and DVD drive. It might boot from a USB flash drive. AFAIK, Microsoft don’t have the Vista ISO on their website, but the Win10 ISO are definitely available and I think that the Win7 ones are available too. Therefore, a last resort might be to try booting with a USB drive and running the recovery tools for a later version of Windows. Probably won’t work, but no harm in trying.

I’ve reached another impasse 🙁

I bought a Caddy to allow me to retrieve my accounts from my (still) knackered PC (Vista). It’s got 2 320 Gig SATA drives and I’ve tried them both in the caddy. I don’t know which one’s got the information on it I require. The 1st drive which I put in the caddy brings up a message telling me there’s no recognisable file system and giving the option to format the disc.

The 2nd disc spins up, the laptop it’s connected to makes the “USB connected” chime but nothing appears in the “my Computer” screen as it did with the first drive. I’ve tried both of these drives in two separate PC’s, one running Win7 Pro and the other running Win 8. There’s no warnings or indicated errors in the device manager.

Is it possible that one or both of the drives is the cause of the original problem ? This is my final punt at fixing this myself. Next stop the repair shop.

Many thanks for the help so far.

TIA, Dave.

Sounds like something is shafted, the second disk is probably your C:\ drive and is dying or already toast, you might get lucky and it’ll spin up (I had one die and it had literally a 1 in 40 chance of spinning up, always took 40 or so attempts but once it was going it was fine for transferring). Your other drive sounds like it has never been used and is box fresh. Maybe.

He’s trying to boot from a DVD drive. My guess is that it’s a MB problem, but it’s possible that the recovery disk is damaged or that there’s a problem affecting the HDD and DVD drive. It might boot from a USB flash drive. AFAIK, Microsoft don’t have the Vista ISO on their website, but the Win10 ISO are definitely available and I think that the Win7 ones are available too. Therefore, a last resort might be to try booting with a USB drive and running the recovery tools for a later version of Windows. Probably won’t work, but no harm in trying.

Recent revelations aside – Win 10, 8 or 7 will NOT recover Vista hence why I advocated a Linux live USB to pull wanted files. And anyway, if it was a mobo problem why would your solution be any better? 😉

Advice I gave a friend a while back fits here.

“It’s fcked, buy a new one.”

If it has Vista I’m guessing it’s a few years old, out of warranty with Dell or you’d just ring them and get new bits.

I would hazard a guess that the hard disk is on it’s way out. They do that, you could format and restart again but it’s on it’s way out so you have a ticking time bomb before it starts failing again.

I may be jaded as being the computer friend I was always landed with beige boxes and a request to “make it work”. People always ignored the forget it and buy a new one, enough that I wanted a T-Shirt that said, “I Told You So”., for when they came back.

Anyway, good luck with fixing, but seriously, buy a new one. Less stress in the long run.

Win 10, 8 or 7 will NOT recover Vista

The point isn’t to recover Vista. The point is that he can’t boot from his Vista recovery DVD but there’s a remote possibility that he could boot from a USB stick and then diagnose hardware problems. Probably won’t work but if nothing else works, this won’t cost anything.

As allen23 says, with a machine that old, best to just buy a new one unless you are really broke.

I’d be trying the caddy with a Known Good drive to verify that the caddy itself works before concluding “two bad disks” on a system that did actually boot.

Did you have two drives visible on the PC historically (ie, a C:\ and a D:\ drive in Explorer)? I’m wondering idly whether what you’ve got there is a RAID mirrored pair, in which case it’ll never work in a caddy.

Can you give me the model number? Better yet, is there a Dell asset tag on it?

I’d be trying the caddy with a Known Good drive to verify that the caddy itself works before concluding “two bad disks” on a system that did actually boot.

I don’t have another drive to try so not an option.

Did you have two drives visible on the PC historically (ie, a C:\ and a D:\ drive in Explorer)? I’m wondering idly whether what you’ve got there is a RAID mirrored pair, in which case it’ll never work in a caddy.

Both drives were visible to me in the “My PC” window. One was only 7 Gig and was labeled something like “Recovery” The remainder of the storage was available to me in my C drive IE the balance of the two 320 Gig drives.

Can you give me the model number? Better yet, is there a Dell asset tag on it?

Leave it with me. I’m half way through cooking the evening meal 😀 I’ll post up the details here later on this evening.

I’m guessing it’s goose is cooked. I don’t need anything cutting edge to replace it. I’ll probably be able to replace it for not much. I hate the though of simply throwing things out simply because they’re broken without having a go at fixing them.

Many thanks for the assistance.

There’s a label underneath if that’s what you mean.

Lots of info on there.

Serial No C85113J
Model No DCTA
Mfg Date 071507

Is this what you were after ?

Weird. According to the Dell website that’s a laptop?

http://www.dell.com/support/home/uk/en/ukdhs1/product-support/servicetag/C85113J/configuration

OK, thanks for all the help. I think it’s time for me to throw this thing in the bin and move on. I dug out an old Lappy running Vista and it can’t read either of the HDD’s either.

Many thanks to everyone who chipped in 😀

Win 10, 8 or 7 will NOT recover Vista

The point isn’t to recover Vista. The point is that he can’t boot from his Vista recovery DVD but there’s a remote possibility that he could boot from a USB stick and then diagnose hardware problems. Probably won’t work but if nothing else works, this won’t cost anything.

As allen23 says, with a machine that old, best to just buy a new one unless you are really broke.

So, to close this out finally. I did as suggested and managed to get the PC running on Ubuntu from a USB stick. After several attempts where it kept shutting down I got access to all the documentation I was after and dragged it over to another USB stick 😀

Many thanks for all the help and suggestions.

You’re a good bunch. D.