Vista is in a reboot loop and F8 doesn't work

[Portnoy44]

I've been doing hardware repair (heat sink glue replacement and adding a HD from an older system). Machine was booting fine beforehand. I have reassembled the machine with a new, secondary hard drive (with XP installed) on the IDE port (the original Vista drive is on SATA One, DVD Drive is on SATA Two). I went into the BIOS and made the XP drive non-bootable.

However. Now, when I try to boot the system, I get the message saying it recommends running Windows Repair, or I can boot Windows normally. Neither option works. The Repair option reboots the system and takes me straight back to the same screen. The Start Windows Normally option reboots and hangs with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner. Pressing F8 does NOTHING. Merp?!?

The machine's owner doesn't have the install disks, either, of course. I have some CD-R 700s is all, no DVDs that I can find. Any suggestions on what programs to download under 700? Any suggestions on a fix?

I've disconnected the XP drive, but the problem persists. Any suggestions? Thanks, everyone.

It's an ACER Aspire M5630, with Vista. Dunno which service pack. PCI Card, 4GB RAM, TV Tuner on the back (no kidding!) That's it. Nothing complicated at all. 775 MOBO. Any other specs needed, just ask.

 

[photonboy]

1) An Install Disc at this point seems almost mandatory. You could buy a copy of Windows 7 64-bit for as little as $40USD on Amazon (then upgrade to W10 if you wish..).

(You can actually install W10 by creating an image via the Microsoft media creation tool. Must match Home/Pro as appropriate for W7 if you have a key. Boot to install and put in the W7 key when prompted. W10 has a lot of drivers that W7 doesn't so may be better.)

2) TV Tuner?
Drivers might be problematic, but if it's not used just ignore it.

3) Hardware issue?
Hard to test, but you can always try running a Linux distro direct from a CD. If you can navigate that okay, then most or all the hardware is at least functional (doesn't validate your hard drives).

It's worth considering this before spending money on Windows if it won't end up working.

4) Was booting fine beforehand.
That's what concerns me. That suggest to me something in the hardware is damaged. Again, you can test with Linux.