namerrill :
Hi Ken, Im still sweating it out after learning at Best Buy that it will cost as much as a new computer to have them fix my laptop. Cannot find a friend who has a vista installation disk to try. Even the Best Buy Geek Squad thought I should try that. Have decided to try getting the hard drive out and see if my work computer would be able to see files on it, that I could transfer to one of my backup drives.
Any ideas on obtaining a Vista installation disk to test whether that would work?
HI Natalie: Sorry to hear of the Geek Squad experience. I knew they would be expensive. Couple of more suggestions. I recall you saying you are a little light on the Tech Side ?
1). Is it possible someone at work, might look at the boot.ini file on the hard drive, and remove the reference to "setup or recovery", as it appears to be stuck on that. I recall you did a recovery, but then when you went into safe mode, could get no further than that loop. This may not even work if the restore failed, but worth a try.
2). As a last resort, you could download (at work) and burn and ISO image of a Rescue CD to boot your computer from. Which could allow you to at a minimum copy personal folders/files to your back up drive. A Linux Live Rescue CD will work, and most of the Anti Virus vendors also have a version. Even my backup software (Acronis) provides one, but you have to have Acronis boot recovery already installed. Someone else may have other suggestions in this regard. I know, Nikorr, who also responded is very adept.
If I had a vista CD, would mail one "across the pond ? ", but am using XP..
And, as previously mentioned, removing the drive and hanging it on a PC as a secondary drive would allow you to access your files, provided the drive is readable, and I guess it is because it hangs in that recovery loop.
Ken
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