cannot boot to windows vista

kerdman

Member
last week I booted from what seemed a sleep mode ( windows resuming ) and could not get beyond a black screen with a white pointer. After several attempts, I clicked on F8 and proceeded to Startup Repair with no success. Then attempted to Start up in Safe Mode with no success. I found this website and burned an ISO ( ImgBurn) and downloaded to a CD the Recovery Essentials. I was able to Boot from that to the Recovery Essentials Window. Selected Automated Repair. Response:
Preparing to repair partition on /dev/sda2Volume identified as ntfs
Scanning volume for errors and inconsistencies...
Volume check and repair complete. Additional consistency check scheduled for next startup.
Basic diagonstics run completed successfully.
Searching for boot-related problems...
Determining the bootloader to be installed...
Starting installation of the BOOTMGR bootloader to /dev/sda2...
New bootloader installation successful.
Rewriting the MBR on /dev/sda
Successfully reinstalled and reconfigured boot-related files.

Automated repair complete. You can now exit and restart your PC.

I am still unable to boot to windows. I do not have a Vista Installation CD. Should I request from the manufacturer ( Gateway )? or could I have success downloading from another source? Can I do that without loosing my files? Would really appreciate help with this. Thank you
 
Thank you. I was aware of this process. Was hoping that i could do this from the command line from the recovery essentials cd. But it will not recognize the commands . If i do not have installation disc, am i out of luck? Gateway will not assist since it is more than 3 yrs old
 
thanks.. microsoft refers to the manufacturer and gateway says it's more than 3-years. do you know if I could load windows 7 or 8? would I have to partition the hard drive or just load the new OS?
 
If you know someone with W7, you can get them to burn you a MS repair disk which should allow you into the command prompt you need.
(Control Panel > Backup & Restore > Create Repair Disc)
Unfortunately neither we nor anyone else can continue to host MS versions, as they have withdrawn the licensing permission.
 
thanks.. microsoft refers to the manufacturer and gateway says it's more than 3-years. do you know if I could load windows 7 or 8? would I have to partition the hard drive or just load the new OS?

You could possibly install Windows 7. Without knowing the exact specifications of the machine to know if you meet the system requirements, we cant answer that question for you. You will have to go to Microsoft's website and figure out if you meet the requirements or not.

You would have to format the partition and install Windows 7 or Windows 8 fresh. Losing all of your data in the process.
 
iirc It will repair Vista boot too (they are after all, the same bootmgr, albeit different builds), but you just want to be able to get into a command prompt to try the suggested fix, and it will certainly do that for you.
 
Typically, you'd see an "not compatible with this system" message if you tried to use the automated repair from a Windows 7 machine to fix a Vista machine (or a 32-bit machine to fix 64-bit or vice-versa). However, if you're up to it, you'd be allowed to use the command prompt to fix the issue yourself manually.
 
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