Solved: Accidentally installed xp drivers on Vista. OUCH

I was working on Vista and went to install the latest nvidia drivers for the motherboard (Lanparty nf4 ultra-D). I have a dual boot system and accidentally clicked and installed the XP drivers and not the Vista x64 drivers!

When loading in safe mode, it errors on nvatax64.sys driver saying that windows could not confirm its digital signature.

Through the repair part of the dvd, I can get around the hd's fine and I have even gone in and tried to reinstall the drivers where it allows you to load the drivers. It loads all except errors when trying to do the ide drivers (I had access to the files on the hd). When starting the repair section, it does show the vista installation, but lists the partition size as 0 and location unknown. (But, like I said, I can get to all the partitions once in the command line.)

I thought that if I could somehow get elevated rights in the command line, I could turn off digital signatures and then re-run the total Vista x64 nVidia driver install. It was a thought anyways.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. I would hate to have to reinstall the OS since it is all there.

 

I have tried to go in and use the pnputil. In the log, I found the inf file is listed as oem11.inf. I have tried to do:

c:\windows\system32\pnputil.exe -d c:\windows\inf\oem11.inf

When I do it, it actually opens oem11.inf in notepad. Why? I don't know.

If I go to c:\windows\inf and type

c:\windows\system32\pnputil.exe -d oem11.inf

It will give me and error saying it can't find the file.

I wish I could just go in and delete nvatax64.sys, but it has copies of everything in the driverstore (yes, I tried using the pnputil.exe directed to the inf for nvatax64 there too!) which are extremely protected.

 

Following someone's advice in another forum, I F8'ed to get to the boot menu and selected to disable enforcing driver signatures.

It allowed Vista to begin, to a point. It loads through the little moving bar at the bottom of the screen, blanks as usual, bring us the cursor as usual, then does nothing else (I don't get to the windows symbol).

I can't tell what is hanging it. I wish I could combine boot options or LOCK disable driver signature verification in the off position.

 

I had an issue with radeon drivers in Vista and couldn't uninstall them without the crash/blue screen etc.

I installed driver cleaner pro to get around it in safemode. Since you most likely won't be able to install DC pro in safemode, boot into safemode and use system restore. The point should be there and say something on the order of "installed device driver'.

 

I have tried to restore from a point. I can try again. It said that it couldn't find the restore point (even though it is set up to do one every night). I think there is some problem with it recognizing the the hd for some reason. Where you start the repair section w/ vista, the little window that opens offering next and load drivers has Vista listed, but the partition size is listed as 0 (even though with the browser for drivers, I see all partitions and when I am in the command prompt I can visit all partitions).

 

I broke down and reinstalled the OS. Now I am slowly, but surely, reinstalling my software.