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Did you at least image the drive first like I recommended?

Even if you didn't, worst case you'll need to hook the drive up to another system (or boot a Linux live CD) to pull any data files off, then reformat.

viewtopic.php?p=1137314#p1137314

Follow the above link. You'll find directions to locate a log to help us track down what's happening.

I should probably re-state, the system does NOT boot to windows. Are you suggesting I connect the hdd to another comp. to retrieve such log files?

In an attempt to troubleshoot, I inserted the Windows disc, ran startup repair. It found something wrong and repaired it. Restarted the system...same problem as before. Running startup repair from the windows disc in subsequent attempts returned no further errors.
Also, I thought maybe I could revert to a previous restore point. No dice, SysPrep seems to have deleted them all.

This is quite fixable.

First up don't click okay when the error appears. Hit Shift+F10 a command prompt will appear.

Try these steps and let's see if my gut feeling on this situation is right.



Reference

Ryu Connor wrote:

First up don't click okay when the error appears. Hit Shift+F10 a command prompt will appear.Try these steps and let's see if my gut feeling on this situation is right.

Sorry, I'm not a trained IT. You're going to have to serve this to me on the layman platter. I've got the command prompt up. How do I use that to copy said file to the flash drive?

You got Skype or Steam?

VoIP would make this a little easier.

Fixed. I'll let DPete27 tell the story.

Yes, my sincerest gratitude to Ryu for guiding me though this fiasco. Here's what we found out: Avast Antivirus registry entries were causing the problem listed above. [Edit]: Namely, Avast locked down its registry entries so they could not be changed/deleted. I suspect this is ultimately necessary in order for Avast to protect itself from viruses trying to disable it, but we couldn't delete the problematic entries (as Ryu stated earlier) no matter how hard we tried.

After much head-scratching, we ended up putting the Avast Uninstaller on a flash drive. Booted into Windows Safe Mode (which hung on the same step as before). Opened the command prompt, ran the uninstaller from the flash drive, restarted, EVERYTHING WORKED PERFECTLY!!! Even though it was a bit of a struggle getting everything figured out, it beats the heck out of re-installing.

For future reference: Uninstall Avast Antivirus (using the Avast uninstaller) before you do SysPrep!

First off, KUDOS TO RYU CONNOR for going above and beyond the call of duty! Wow! Makes me feel extra-special for being part of the TR community.

zenlessyank wrote:

Probably will get flamed, but since I don't care, I will tell you this..... "sysprep"ers and "oobe"ers are peeps who deal with dell/hp big box brands which those tools are made for. They can easily make a custom 'image' and roll it out remotely to a whole crap load of similar hardware for large departments, etc. Problem is most of us techies buy diff motherboards with diff options/features that those tools don't take into consideration.

But I've done this several times with enthusiast boards and OS installs. I've never had any significant problem. I'm not trying to flame you, but your objection simply wasn't very accurate. The problem wasn't even the hardware, the problem was software, namely Avast. In fact, the system booted and evidently functioned before sysprep. In other words, it was a software/configuration conflict.

And I've had numerous problems over the years with software like that getting its tentacles into places where it causes unforeseen conflicts, irrespective of hardware changes.

As DPete27 summarized, all we needed was a another step: remove anti-virus before sysprep.

Anyway, another round of applause for Ryu Connor!

zenlessyank wrote:

Probably will get flamed, but since I don't care, I will tell you this..... "sysprep"ers and "oobe"ers are peeps who deal with dell/hp big box brands which those tools are made for. They can easily make a custom 'image' and roll it out remotely to a whole crap load of similar hardware for large departments, etc. Problem is most of us techies buy diff motherboards with diff options/features that those tools don't take into consideration.

Actually, no, that's incorrect or at the very least outdated. That was the case with XP and before, sure but when Vista was released, they introduced a switch for Sysprep (/generalize) which removes all driver information and allows you to use a single image on multiple hardware platforms. It could be that the OP's problem wasn't quite what Microsoft had in mind when they designed it but it will still work for him.

At work I have a single image with no drivers in it at all, it is deployed across at least five years worth of equipment on both AMD and Intel hardware.

DPete27 wrote:

The Egg wrote:

you'd be leaving yourself open to possible issues or less than optimal performance.

So, from bullet-point #2 in my OP, is there a way to go about uninstalling the unused motherboard drivers without having to do a clean install? Is there any driver-cleaner program that I can actually trust?

I have done what you want to do many times and the main difference is none of the boards were dead so I could go into the device manger and uninstall all the drivers that I thought might cause a conflict, without rebooting of course.

If the board is dead and you can't do this and you are say doing the work for a friend of "customer" I would take the time to do a fresh install and perhaps save you the time of having to come back.

Also note that the OP didn't say whether it was an OEM copy of windows. OEM's are 'tied' to the original board only in terms of license, so we may have all just helped OP break law!!

But I also have had good luck swapping out different boards without jacking the OS, and if someone has the time to tie up all the loose ends then more power to them. I just don't care for phone calls 2 weeks later about arcane software issues!!!

** firing up a VM to play with sysprep now, I admit I have spent too much time playing with the Linux virus and all its cute variants since I couldn't afford my TechNet subscription for the last few years, which means no new MS toys to play with

coal subscriber

zenlessyank wrote:

Also note that the OP didn't say whether it was an OEM copy of windows. OEM's are 'tied' to the original board only in terms of license, so we may have all just helped OP break law!!

While this is indeed the letter of the EULA, from what I've heard over the years it seems that MS themselves are generally pretty forgiving when the situation involves a dead motherboard that is no longer being produced.

zenlessyank wrote:

I admit I have spent too much time playing with the Linux virus and all its cute variants since I couldn't afford my TechNet subscription for the last few years, which means no new MS toys to play with

I've tended to focus on Ubuntu/Debian instead of poking at "all its cute variants". I want to use it to get real work done, so I figure a deeper knowledge of one corner of the ecosystem is probably more useful than attempting to cover all the bases.

Okay, so, I'm still having some lingering problems here. After the motherboard swap (but before SysPrep) none of the new motherboard drivers would load, including the Ethernet driver. I even downloaded the Ethernet driver from Gigabyte's website. After a VERY long time (cancelled the install a couple times thinking it was froze) the install completed but there was no Ethernet controller detected and that I should disable Ethernet Deep Sleep and plug the cable in. Ethernet power-savings/hibernation was already disabled in the BIOS and re-plugging the cable didn't do anything, nor did re-starting. I figured I'd run SysPrep and see if that alleviated the problem...it didn't. Still getting the same outcome. No drivers will install on startup (chipset, LAN, etc etc) and I can't get them to install even with the downloaded files from Gigabyte. In an attempt to at least get internet access, I tried installing an Intel Ethernet PCIe x1 card (this card was actually installed on the dead mobo because it's onboard NIC was busted). The driver couldn't install properly. So, here I sit. Finish line in sight. But I can't get this damned thing to access the internet or install drivers.

PS, installing the Intel chipset drivers tells me I can't because I don't have administrative privileges, yet the account is an administrator account.

PPS, plugging the Ethernet chord into my main rig works just fine (aka, the chord/connection to router is fine)

Windows 7 is often really good about a complete mainboard swap.

I went from a Z68 chipset mainboard tonight to a Z97. Decided I'd just do it in place for the heck of it. No issues other than finding a couple of the Z97 drivers; Windows 7 just had to find the hardware. I had one BSOD in the middle because the new devices found were going berserk, but restarting took care of that, and everything picked up where it left off and kept installing.

I'd back up your data, but then I'd try it. Note: some versions of Windows 7 might want you to re-activate; as I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise, this is not an issue for me.

P.S. Use another PC to put drivers on a USB key so you don't have to get to the Internet.

LoneWolf15 wrote:

Use another PC to put drivers on a USB key so you don't have to get to the Internet.

That's what I did to get the installer on the Ethernet-less PC in the first place.

Sorry I forgot to update the status after my last post. But I ended up having to reformat after all (because of the Ethernet issues). It wasn't too much hassle since the rig was pretty fresh anyway, just ~4 more hours of my life (waiting for Windows updates to install mostly)... I did commit SysPrep to memory so I can use it in the future though!