please help with vista 32 bit recovery disk

D

drkdevin

Member
i have a compaq presario c700 with windows vista home basic sp1 32 bit.

recently after an interrupted windows update my laptop got stuck on a loop, going from doing a disk check to update 3 of 3, restarting and doing it again. i looked for help online and came across the NeoSmart blog. I downloaded the 32 bit recovery disk, burned it, all fine. what i'm having trouble with is this:

i'm following these instructions
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

but instead of having the system recovery options window pop up after i click 'repair your computer' i get this instead...
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/DrkDevin/CS/MSG1.jpg
(sry 4 the crappy pics they were taken with a camera phone)

its not the same but i figured it would work anyway, so i select and click next to repair but it gets stuck on this screen... http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/DrkDevin/CS/MSG2.jpg

i thought it might be working but it's been running for almost 36 hours now and nothing has happened.

am i doing something wrong? i really don't want to lose my stuff. what else can i do?
 
Hi devin, welcome to NST.
Your problem isn't a broken boot. You're getting well past the boot process.
You have a broken Vista, apparently caused by a bad WUD.
If the system will boot into safe mode (use F8 to access the extended boot menu), use it to system restore back to the point that WUD set before it began the aborted update.
If you can't get into safe mode, boot the recovery disk, but don't use "startup repair" from the second screen, use system restore to get back to before the WUD.
Then let WUD run again, but take precautions against whatever interrupted it before from happening again.
 
hey terry, thanks for responding so quick.

even with the safe mode it still loops (from disk check to update 3 of 3 to restarting) and i don't get the second screen or any other options aside from system recovery (the second screen doesn't come up, just the first picture i provided).

:frowning:
 
Sometimes, it takes the "startup repair" automatically without giving you the option (I'm not sure what the circumstances are that trigger it), so presumably the failed WUD makes it think it needs to do it).
If you hit cancel, does that take you to screen 2 ?
If not (and I assume you tried "last known good" before embarking on the repair ), I can't see any option other than a reinstall. You can rescue your user data first using a live Linux distro run from the CD
 
If it detects the problem automatically you should accept. Failing to could mean that later attempts might fail. I've had cases like this too and if it auto-detects a problem it tends to fix it.
 
That link will download a copy of Ubuntu 9.04.
Burn the ISO file to a CD using Imgburn. (It's freeware and Vista can't burn ISOs)
It's "live" in the sense that you can boot the CD and run Ubuntu directly from the CD without needing to install it to your HDD.
It gives you a running OS from which you can access (and copy) all of the contents of your non-functional HDD OS.
Use it to save all your documents, photos etc to external storage.
 
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i cannot say this enough but thank you so much for your help. i was dreading losing all my files and pictures of my kids and you just made my day letting me know i can save them. :grinning:
 
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