Vista Recovery Discs

TomatoBoy

New Member
Hi. I am trying to help a friend with a non-booting Vista computer. He has no Vista disc with his Dell so we have downloaded the recovery discs (32 and 64 bit) however both just boot into Caldera DOS. Have we done something wrong during the download/ISO burning process please or is this a sign of something more serious with the O/S?

Many thanks.
 
Did you download them from here ?
Did you burn the entire untouched download as an ISO, or did you mistakenly think that the downloaded file needed extracting ?
Have you got the PC set to boot CD before HDD ?
 
Sorry to hijack this thread, but I too am one of those, who apparently are pc illiterate. I have an hp pavilion, desk top, running vista 32 bit. It hangs st the MS loading screen, safe mode does not load (hangs at crcdick.sys). So I DL'd the iso for the vista rec cd, burnt the image untouched to a cd. After hitting any key to boot from cd drive, windows loads files and then cuts back to Microsoft loading screen. Shorty after it becomes black screen of death. The keyboard I beleive is also locked out (num lock shuts off). On a side note Linux loads through same bios without a hitch
 
Same problem for me. I burned the files to a CD. I chose the 32 bit (how do I know if I need that one or the 64 bit is still a question I have). I can get the CD to start, then it says it's installing files, next it I get the black screen with the word Microsoft and progress bar at the bottom that you usually get before the Windows screen comes on. At this point it just hangs and the CD drive whirs. I let it go like this for 10 minutes. Should I just keep letting it go for longer? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
 
If a Windows PC is not booting because of problems with the HDD, that will generally prevent an installation DVD, or a repair disk (a subset of the former) from booting too. (Unfortunately they try to read the HDD during boot)
Linux doesn't try to examine the status of the OS on the HDD when it boots, so fortunately you can use it to rescue your user files from the HDD before attempting to restore the PC from its OEM recovery partition/media.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/
 
abene001,

“I chose the 32 bit (how do I know if I need that one or the 64 bit is still a question I have).”

32 vs 64 bit

“Most programs designed for the 32-bit version of Windows will work on the 64-bit version of Windows. Notable exceptions are many antivirus programs.

If the program is specifically designed for the 64-bit version of Windows, it won't work on the 32-bit version of Windows. (However, most programs designed for the 32-bit version of Windows will work on the 64-bit version of Windows.)”

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/...and-64-bit-Windows-frequently-asked-questions

Most of the newer processors are 64-bit. The advantage of 64-bit is that it can utilize more than 4 GB of RAM. Just because the system has 4 GB of RAM or less does not in any way necessarily mean that the processor is 32-bit. Especially laptops 4 GB of RAM or less is generally the the norm.
 
hi, i have a question, does anybody have the recovery disk for Windows Vista Home Premium "OEM", im trying to fix my sister's pc, removed all the viruses, but it wont start up normally, so i need the recovery disk for the "OEM" version and they didn't get it when they bought the pc from the store.
 
If they didn't provide recovery disc(s), there will be a recovery partition to "factory reset" the PC accessed by hot key(s) at power up. That differs according to the make of PC. Your user handbook should say.
Our recovery discs cannot be used to repair a broken OS. They contain no installation files, only the MS repair console for fixing a broken boot.
 
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