Windows Vista Boot Problem

Have you tried inserting your Vista installation DVD and running Startup Repair, as detailed on this page:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html
How to automatically repair Windows Vista using Startup Repair

What is Startup Repair?  This Microsoft page has a great deal more information about that:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5c59f8c1-b0d1-4f1a-af55-74f3922f3f351033.mspx
Windows Help and How-To:  Startup Repair: frequently asked questions

Startup Repair is designed to detect operating system startup problems and troubleshoot any found and correct them with little user interaction.  It can repair problems such as:

- missing or corrupt drivers
- missing or corrupt system files
- missing or corrupt boot configuration settings
- corrupt registry settings
- corrupt disk metadata (master boot record, partition table, or boot sector.)

When the Startup Repair Tool has taken control, it analyzes startup log files for clues about the source of the problem and launches diagnostic tests to determine the cause. If it determines the cause of the failure, it attempts to fix the problem automatically. After successfully repairing the problem, it will reboot the system, and notify the user of the repairs, filing a detailed report in the Windows Vista event log.

If the Startup Repair Tool can identify the cause of the problem, but can't repair the problem by itself, it will provide access to a set of tools that you can use to manually troubleshoot the problem further.  One of these is the Bootrec tool described below.

If the Startup Repair Tool cannot identify or repair the problem, it will roll back the system to the last configuration that was known to work (Last Known Good Configuration.) Again it will add detailed information about the problem to the Windows Vista event log.

if you don't have a Vista installation DVD, what do you do in order to access the Vista Recovery Environment, at least?  You go to this site and download the makings for a recovery disk:

http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/

Hi Leetutor

Thanks for the advice it was great.  Downloaded the files tried running at startup and the repair option, but unfortunately it was no good at repairing the startup problem.  Neither was the System Restore option.  So thought I would try the restore complete pc option, but it didnt recognise my NAS harddrive (where the backup was on) so Im a bit screwed.  So what I did was reinstall VISTA and then tried to restore from my backup, but because it was from what it thought was a different pc, it wouldnt let me do it????  Any ideas as to what I can do next??

>So what I did was reinstall VISTA and then tried to restore from my backup, but because it was from what it thought was a different pc, it wouldnt let me do it????

Apparently you did find your Vista install DVD, then?  You reinstalled, but the error is still there, or is it gone?  And what is the meaning of "it thought was a different pc"?  Can you give a more accurate wording of the error?

And about the NAS harddrive, does it require a driver to be installed before you can use it?

Hi LeeTutor

Yeah I did eventually find my Vista dvd, and because I reinstalled it has resolved the starup issue, but now I have a blank default Vista and all my docs, pics, setting etc sitting on a backup.file, that I cant access.

When I boot Vista now and go into the Backup Status centre etc I select the option of Restore Files.  

Advanced restore or Restore Files

1) Selecting Restore Files displays "there are no backups available on this computer"

Im presuming becasue its  new install all records of prev backups have been wiped (eg it thinks theres never been a backup of this machine done)

2) Advanced Restore, only option available is "files from a backup made on a different computer", so I select NEXT.

Browse in my NAS (which is drive E:) and say NEXT, it then says that Windows was not able to find any backup sets on E:\, even though I can browse throughthe files etc and locate the files.

Just as an aside, the files I have in place are a .vhd file and a load of .xml files.

No I  know that vhd files are used in VPC, can you restore these into a VPC do you think??

If I can get the items from the backup that would suffice.

Thanks again

PS, No drivers for the Hardrive as Vista installs the USB drivers automatically.

Hi LeeTutor

I had just seen the page before you sent it, thats great Im busy copying over the relevant filesIm desperate for now to my "Real" harddrive on another pc.  One more thing  though (that was the main thing), my new installation of Vista has just died on me again.  Same error as before, this literally only had Symantec AV (Just installed on it) and now its dies again.  Do you think it possible this could be a hardware fault???

Well, personally I don't trust any Symantec products since I see so many questions at Experts-Exchange where respondents complain about all the problems they cause.  Nevertheless, I don't see how they could cause a boot error.  You might want to try running a disk diagnostic utility. Most disk vendors have these for free.

www.seagate.com 
www.maxtor.com 
www.westerndigital.com 
www.quantum.com 
www.fujitsu.com 

For example:

Seagate
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools

Western Digital
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en

The diagnostic tools are usually going to have to be written to a floppy disk.  If you don't have a floppy drive available (even a cheap USB one) or cannot boot to one, then you could try the diagnostic tools on The Ultimate Boot CD:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/