Missing uxtheme.dll problem unable to start Windows 7 at all.

[Michael Jacky]

Hello!

So, about an hour or so ago, my computer stopped working. I came home from work and woke up my computer which was in sleep mode (short day at work, so I didn't want to shut it down). The logon screen appears and I log in, no problem, just like most days.
But after a while, en error message appears saying something about uxtheme.dll is missing and explorer.exe cannot continue working and it will shut down. I pressed OK, forgot to take a photo of it, and indeed explorer.exe shut down and wouldn't restart. Nothing was working, everything was stuck, even my chrome, spotify and skype windows shut down.

So I decided to restart the computer and hope that fixes it. Nope, when it's finished scanning for my RAID0 drive (which Windows is installed on), it's supposed to show the Windows Startup screen with the lights that twist and becomes the flag, instead this appears:

The only thing showing is that white dash in the top right flashing.

Great, I can't even start Windows. I searched the problem with uxtheme.dll on google on my laptop (which I'm currently on), and only found problems and solutions where the "victim" still had access to Windows and could look up fixes for the problem on the same computer.
A few suggested opening Windows 7 in Safe mode, but usually the ability to do this becomes available after you restart the computer the first time by holding down the boot button, Norwegian shutdown like we call it here in Sweden. But the computer had already gone passed this once, I had already restarted it twice and it only showed the first time, even-though I shut it down the same way as the previous time. Some articles linked guides on how to boot Windows 7 in Safe Mode, the guides said to press and hold F8 before the Windows Startup screen witht he flag.
I tried but failed, tried again, it failed, and it didn't seem to work, at all, and my computer never even reaches that point, it just get's stuck on the black screen with the flashing dash.

I then tried to open the boot menu of my motherboard, all drives were showing up, and there I chose to start via the RAID0, like it should do automatically. Then I came to a black and white windows menu where I could choose start windows normally or start repair operation. I chose repair operation (mind you, my windows is in Swedish so I'm only loosely translating and the terms that I use might not be the actual terms used by the English version of the OS) and it booted up the repair operation, but when it had booted it claimed that the feature wasn't compatible with my version of Windows and asked me to instead try repairing it with my Windows 7 CD. And so I did, I used the motherboard boot menu to initialize with my CD-drive, and the Windows install/repair software started. I clicked repair but it claimed the same thing, that it wasn't compatible with my Windows version... Here's the error message, it's in Swedish so I don't know how much help it'll be but it's better than nothing:

Rough translation: "This version of options for system reset is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a reset disc that is compatible with this version of Windows"


I then tried the same thing with the boot menu [picture below this paragraph] and chose the RAID0 and then chose to start windows normally, and look at that, it actually did, the Windows Startup screen with the twisting lights that become the flag came up, [strike]but after that the computer rebooted, but I was busy looking at my laptop so I didn't see it happen and when I looked back it was on the flashing dash screen again.[/strike]

So, I restarted my computer another time, but this time it had problems detecting my RAID0 when it scanned for my drives... And after a while I said that my RAID0 was offline... I pressed CTRL+F to open the RAID0 Option ROM Utility and it showed this:

Only ONE drive instead of what it was supposed to show if the other drive of the RAID was working:

I then rebooted and opened up the motherboard boot menu and it showed this, the RAID gone:

New data: The "Start Windows Normally" caused the one of the drives to stop working for a while... weird...

Anyhow, so now the RAID0 is working again, but the problem with the uxtheme.dll still persists.
Repair operations via the boot menu thing I did or with the actual CD I installed Windows 7 with won't work. Booting up in Safe Mode doesn't seem to work. What can I do now?
It feels like a virus, but how can I tackle a virus that won't even let my access the OS?
I mean I could format that RAID and reinstall Windows, but there are two problems with that, I really don't want to since I have a bunch of games that I'll have to reinstall, some of the games are modded and are not a simple uninstall reinstall operation. And the most important part, my saved games always saves on my C:\ drive documents (tried changing it before but it didn't work, the games complained too much).

I'm backed up into a corner here and I don't know what to do...
I'm even confused to how a missing uxtheme.dll file can cause windows to not start at all...

My Windows version is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.
My RAID0 consists of two identical OCZ-Vertex 2 SSD 60GB.
My motherboard is an Asus M4A87TD-EVO.

Sry it got so long-winded.

 

[junkeymonkey]

via the RAID0, -- raid 0 is not the safest and lots of risk - if you get a failing 0 array issues occur like data corruption

you need you understand the risks of a raid 0 array and that its performance only with a high chance of data loss if not 100% prefect operating order

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/uxtheme-dll-not-found-missing-error.htm


''without parity information, redundancy, or fault tolerance. Since RAID 0 provides no fault tolerance or redundancy, the failure of one drive will cause the entire array to fail; as a result of having data striped across all disks, the failure will result in total data loss. This configuration is typically implemented having speed as the intended goal''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

so with a raid 0 one little ''goof'' can cost you it all

 

[Michael Jacky]

via the RAID0, -- raid 0 is not the safest and lots of risk - if you get a failing 0 array issues occur like data corruption

you need you understand the risks of a raid 0 array and that its performance only with a high chance of data loss if not 100% prefect operating order

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/uxtheme-dll-not-found-missing-error.htm


''without parity information, redundancy, or fault tolerance. Since RAID 0 provides no fault tolerance or redundancy, the failure of one drive will cause the entire array to fail; as a result of having data striped across all disks, the failure will result in total data loss. This configuration is typically implemented having speed as the intended goal''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

so with a raid 0 one little ''goof'' can cost you it all

I was unaware that it was so risky, but eitherway, the reason why I did a RAID0 was because it was the only one that satisfied my needs.

 

[junkeymonkey]

as long as your satisfied that's all that counts ..

raid 0 is fine as long as you know the risk and for me its something you don't use for anything ''critical '' or anything you may need to keep or hard to replace -- failed is failed and recovery can be -0-

it can last a long time or fail you in some way in a min. '''without parity information, redundancy, or fault tolerance'' '.

when you start seeing corruption issues for the most part it don't go away and unlike a mirrored array all your data is ''split up'' between the 2 drives so makes recovery a no go


good luck

 

[Michael Jacky]

as long as your satisfied that's all that counts ..

raid 0 is fine as long as you know the risk and for me its something you don't use for anything ''critical '' or anything you may need to keep or hard to replace -- failed is failed and recovery can be -0-

it can last a long time or fail you in some way in a min. '''without parity information, redundancy, or fault tolerance'' '.

when you start seeing corruption issues for the most part it don't go away and unlike a mirrored array all your data is ''split up'' between the 2 drives so makes recovery a no go


good luck

I decided to just format everything and redo the RAID, but this time I ignored the performance boost and went for JBOD instead, I've cleaned both drives so there should be no Windows files on them, and the "fast init" even cleaned the MSR status when creating the RAID.
But still, in Windows installer, it says the JBOD is MSR reserved and has only 128MB of space... What's going on?

EDIT: I forgot that I have to use certain AMD RAID Controller drivers to make it possible to install 64-bit on it. Now it's working, Everything is solved.

 

[junkeymonkey]

just do a raid 1 I feel its the safest one drive fails it normally don't affect the other you can run it as a single rive or replace the bad drive with out any loss ?/

to me raid was fine back in the old days when we used top end 80gb platter ide drives todays drives are pretty quick and lots of space on them

anyway good luck [don't hurt to try things out and see how it goes to get your own opinions and user experiences ] so I'm not trying to knock anything you do [if you don't try it you just don't know for the next time]

''But still, in Windows installer, it says the JBOD is MSR reserved and has only 128MB of space... What's going on? ''

cant say but maybe why things failed to start with overall ??

 

[Michael Jacky]

just do a raid 1 I feel its the safest one drive fails it normally don't affect the other you can run it as a single rive or replace the bad drive with out any loss ?/

to me raid was fine back in the old days when we used top end 80gb platter ide drives todays drives are pretty quick and lots of space on them

anyway good luck [don't hurt to try things out and see how it goes to get your own opinions and user experiences ] so I'm not trying to knock anything you do [if you don't try it you just don't know for the next time]

''But still, in Windows installer, it says the JBOD is MSR reserved and has only 128MB of space... What's going on? ''

cant say but maybe why things failed to start with overall ??

RAID 1 is mirrored... JBOD and RAID0 are the only ones who cna satisfy my needs. I want more space. I NEED the 111GB it gets out, all of it.

 

[junkeymonkey]

then get a 500gb drive or at least a 160 / 240gb ?

if that's wht you need and feel your way is the best to do it no problems there . all you can do is what ''you'' think is best for ''you'' I'm all good with that

 

[Michael Jacky]

then get a 500gb drive or at least a 160 / 240gb ?

if that's wht you need and feel your way is the best to do it no problems there . all you can do is what ''you'' think is best for ''you'' I'm all good with that

The reason why I haven't just bought a bigger drive is because big SSD drives are expensive, or at least they were at the time when I installed the current drives I have (already had them back then, I didn't buy them). But, whenever I get money, I'll see if I can invest in a bigger drive.

 

[junkeymonkey]

heck the 240's I looked at were only like 60 bucks ??

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-SSDNow-SV300S37A-240G/dp/B00A1ZTZNM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100011693%204814%20600038463%20600414918&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=636%7C20%2D147%2D372%5E20%2D147%2D372%2C20%2D721%2D108%5E20%2D721%2D108%2C0D9%2D0021%2D00006%5E0D9%2D0021%2D00006%2C20%2D211%2D984%5E20%2D211%2D984%2C20%2D178%2D967%5E20%2D178%2D967&percm=20%2D721%2D108%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B0D9%2D0021%2D00006%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B20%2D211%2D984%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B20%2D178%2D967%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

''already had them back then, I didn't buy them''
ya, I understand that not like I try to reuse what I have around

still all you can do is the best you can with what you got [nothing wrong with that ] now you kinda wonder if any firmware issue is around with older drives on newer builds as well ?? [may check on any updates to apply ]

tough call looks like your at the best you can with what you got . been there done that......