Frequently Asked Questions
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Q: What types of difficulties can Startup Repair resolve?

A: Startup Repair attempts to automatically resolve common boot-related difficulties. The issues it addresses are the following:

Difficulty Detection Repair
Registry Corruption X X
Missing or damaged system and driver files X X
Disk metadata corruption (MBR, partition table, and boot sector) X X
File system metadata corruption X X
Installation of problematic or incompatible drivers X X
Installation of incompatible Windows service packs and patches X X
Corrupt boot configuration data X X
Bad memory and hard disk hardware X  

Startup Repair will not recover unbootable computers caused by the following:

  • Hardware failure (such as firmware) - it can diagnose some hardware issues, but it cannot repair them.
  • Issues that occur during a clean installation or upgrade of Windows Vista.
  • Logon-related issues.
  • Malware removal - it may recover the computer, but does not address root cause.

Note: Some of the information in this document was provided by Microsoft.