Windows vista directory structure

[handy_man619]

Vista would not boot and was in an infinite loop displaying a message that the /BOOT/BCD file was corrupt. However, pressing F8 while booting would do nothing but just kept looping and telling me that the BCD file was corrupt, etc.

I had to force a boot from CD and manually re-installed Vista. However, the install did not include necessary drivers so my wireless didn't work, USB mouse didn't work, etc, so I decded to try the factory install once more. This time, the install appeared to be working for a couple minutes but then just ended with the message, "ERROR", nothing else to indicate what the error was. I assume there is a log someplace that will tell me what the error was, but I did notice that the "OS" file was completely full with files created during the rebuild.

Any idea how to do a factory install at this point? It's my college age daughter's computer and I want her to be able to rebuild if necessary in the future. Also, if I can't rebuild the factory image, how do I get the necessary drivers installed? I do have the drivers CD that came with the computer, but it's not apparent how to install them.

 

[pat mcgroin]

Was it the factory cd that you used to reinstall Vista?
If so you may have another disk with the drivers.
If not you can go to the manufacture web site and get all of the drivers.

Then just put them on a seperate cd and put them both together.