T61 Vista Ultimate in continuous loop rebooting

[bighank]

System is a continuous loop which starts normally then says Configuring Windows Update 0% Compete. Screen blanks but instead of finishing boot cycle and going to desktop reboots the system and starts this cycle again. Cloned disk to another drive with same results in a different T61.
Hardware is OK as when I install another HD in the Ultrabay slot (normally occupied with the DVD/CD drive) can boot after pressing F12 after power on and selecting the HD in the Ultrabay slot.
Ran tests on the HD from Win Explorer checking and repairing any bad sectors. Took over 2 hours but no changes.

Can I somehow stop the Configuring Windows Update file which must be running as a startup commandlist. If so HOW?

Do not have Vista startup CD only the hidden partition which if used will kill all data and applications on the HD.

[dr_st]

Have you tried booting into safe mode (press F8 on startup?)

[TuuS]

I agree, boot into safemode and see if you can use system restore to abort the updates then start over. It may even detect the failure and disable the updates for you want you start in safemode, depending on the type of failure. If you have trouble getting into safemode by pressing f8 as soon as your os begins to load, you can try powering off mid-boot, this usually triggers a promot to enter safemode on the next boot.

Good Luck

[bighank]

Booted into safemode or tried too. Does not make it to the desktop. Goes into same reboot loop as trying to boot normally. Is there some way to boot with another disk and remove the startup command running at startup which causes the system to go into the loop?

[dr_st]

Try this: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... 260abc05f9

[bighank]

Booted another T61 laptop with vista ultimate and put HD from the system that continuously reboots in the Ultrabay. Shows up as the D: drive. Went to the Windows.winsxs directory and attempted to delete pending.xml file as shown in link from last post.
Got ACCESS DENIED. Typed COMMAND under the RUN command to get to a command prompt. Changed directory to windows.winsxs and typed del pending.xml. Got same message ACCESS DENIED.
Did the same on a T61P system running windows 7 ultimate. Same results. Also got message file was in use.
Rebooted and did not open windows explored just went to CLI and tried to del the pending.xml file.
Checked attributes. Only the A attribute is set. Tried to remove that and got access denied.

Do not have vista DVD as the windows vista OS was preloaded onto the systems from Lenovo.

How can I delete the pending.xml file? It is about 2.3 meg long.

[pianowizard]

Do not have vista DVD as the windows vista OS was preloaded onto the systems from Lenovo.

Make one for free: http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... river.aspx

[bighank]

Built a Vista DVD and booted from it. Followed the instructions from the Microsoft topic for continuous booting after a Windows Update. Deleted the PENDING.XML file using the CLI from the Vista boot DVD.
Rebooted the T61 and after a while it finally went to the desktop. Shut down and reIPLed.
This time it actually installed the Windows Updates and went from 0% to 100%.
Have shutdown and powered on several times since and it seems OK. Not sure why the startup PENDING.XML file caused the loop.

Although the Vista SP1 bootable DVD allowed me to use the Command Line Interface it would not recognize a valid Vista COA serial number. Not sure why.

Thanks to all who volunteered suggestions as I did not have to reinstall the OS from scratch and loose all data and customizations.

[TuuS]

Glad you solved the problem. If you run into future problems of being unable to edit or delete files in vista/seven, the solution is running two commandline scripts, one to release ownership, and one to take ownership. It's been awhile since I've done it, but if anyone needs to know how I'd beglad to look it up.

or...

A very simple alternative is to boot a linux operating system. Linux can easily delete files that windows won't allow.

Older windows versions such as WinXP used a simple form of Windows File Protection. Back then it was as easy as booting into safemode to disable it so you could easily delete files, but starting with Vista they introduced deeper levels of protection and even with WFP disabled, you can still only delete files that are "owned" by your user account, or an admin account can delete files in any of the lower level accounts, but files owned by the system are much more difficult to delete.

Well, I might as well post the scripts needed to do this within windows...

To take ownership run the following in a command prompt, replacing c:\filename.xxx with the actual filename and path.

takeown /f C:\filename.xxx

Your user account will now "own" the file, but you cannot delete it until you get full control of the file, which can be done using the following command.

cacls C:\filename.xxx /G TuuS:F

Substitute "TuuS" for your user account name.

This can be the fastest way to delete one or two files, but if you want to delete many files the fastest way I've found is to use a linux OS or liveCD.

[pianowizard]

Have you guys tried the freeware unlocker? I have always had luck using it to delete any file.