Vista upgrade has me in a loop

[codahiky]

Hey All,
My wife's desktop apparently had done an automatic Vista update. When it got to configuring update 3 of 3 problems occured. The computer starts up and immediately goes to a screen that says "Configuring Update 3 of 3 - 0% complete. Do not turn off computer". The computer eventually shuts down and restarts and does this all over again. I downloaded a recovery disk and went to the boot menu and selected the CD drive but, still does not boot from the disk. I can't go back to a recovery point because it tells me there is a problem on C:/. I also did perform every diagnostic check successfully.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance for the help.

[kairozamorro]

Hello codahiky, welcome to NST

In addition to moving the cd drive up in the boot sequence you also need to press a key to boot from cd/dvd when it prompts you to. Otherwise, it'll go on to boot from the hard drive.

Are you sure its looping? SP2 for Vista jsut came out within the past 2-3 weeks via WU and requires that the system reboot 1-3 times during installation. Check the stages as well as the percent to see if it'll go onto to the next stage. In addition it'll say to the left of the message "Installing Service Pack". If its doing this let it finish the installation.

In our wiki you'll find the instructions for startup repair and manual recovery from the recovery disc should you need it. You may need to attempt startup repair 2-3 times to fix everything. Try that first before moving on to manual recovery.