help on fixing an old laptop.

[Ferrariassassin]

I am fixing my cousins laptop and i did a system restore back to factory but now when i try to turn it on all it does is run Startup repair in a constant loop. It does startup repair than finishes than does it again over and over never ending. If i try to start windows normaly it does nothing at all it goes straight to Startup repair also so no matter what i do it goes to a constant loop of startup repair. And the laptop has no CD drive and i do not think the BIOS works with Bootable Thumb drives. Is there a way i can plug the HDD from the laptop up to my Desktop and format it than install windows Vista to it somehow, can i get windows vista online? I am talking about the Software not the Key.

 

[Greantea]

Did you try the bootable usb on the laptop?

 

[Ferrariassassin]

Did you try the bootable usb on the laptop?

How do i get one? I have one but do not know how to instal windows vista to it.

 

[Greantea]

Get a working pc or laptop then get an iso of a windows os then use microsoft usb tool to make your usb bootable

 

[Ferrariassassin]

Get a working pc or laptop then get an iso of a windows os then use microsoft usb tool to make your usb bootable

How and where? i have a working PC and a USB drive but how do i get the OS? The laptop says it has WIndows Vista Basic

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I cant see make & model of the laptop
please provide this

you need to find out if BIOS supports bootable USB DVD drive or USB memory
If not repair is going to be difficult.

You probably need the laptop manufacturers specific Vista oem recovery disk set.
If you get the wrong version the Windows Vista key on the laptop will not work.

You said you did a 'system restore back to factory'
but not how you did this,
was it done from from a recovery partition ?

Something went wrong
did you re install over the top of existing windows ?
or take option to format c: first ?

Maybe the hard disk has problems and needs testing using Western Digital DataLifeGuard for Windows (which works on most makes of hard disk)
then if it passes run chkdsk

(HDD possibly in another PC or USB tray)

regards
Mike Barnes