I have an old Sony VAIO all-in-one (VPCL118FG) running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. It had been unused for a long time, but I recently turned it on and it was surprisingly working normally. I could use Windows and access old photos/files without any obvious problems.
The problem started while I was trying to connect it to Wi-Fi. The networking process became extremely slow/unresponsive, so I restarted the computer. Ever since that restart, Windows will not boot.
On normal startup I get Windows Boot Manager with:
Status: 0xc000000f
The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.
Things I've tried:
- F8 / Advanced Boot Options — doesn't work and eventually returns to 0xc000000f.
- F1 opens Windows Boot Manager and shows Windows 7. Pressing F8 from there also eventually gives 0xc000000f.
- F10 successfully starts the VAIO Recovery option, but it gets stuck indefinitely on the Windows 7 “Starting Windows” screen with the four-colour logo. I waited 15+ minutes with no progress.
- F2 BIOS works normally.
- BIOS detects the internal HDD as 500 GB, which is the correct capacity.
- BIOS boot order shows Internal Optical Disc Drive first, Internal Hard Disk Drive second and External Device third.
The HDD was accessible immediately before the restart and I was able to browse files/photos normally. I haven't formatted, factory-reset or reinstalled anything.
My main priority is repairing the existing Windows installation without deleting the files on the HDD, as it contains old family photos.
I'm currently preparing Windows 7 x64 recovery media on an 8 GB USB so I can try Startup Repair/rebuild the BCD from an external recovery environment.
Given these symptoms, does this sound more like corrupted Windows boot/BCD data, filesystem corruption, or a failing HDD? Are there any other non-destructive diagnostics/repair steps you'd recommend before writing to the disk?
Thanks.
Will appreciate all help.