Boot Problem! Please Help Me...

The following machine in my signature has broken... I need your help to try to fix it. After doing some amateur partitioning that I know now went wrong, I restarted my computer and now it won't boot Vista Home Premium, my operating system, it goes through the first screen with DELL and the machine's name. But after that, it just shows a black screen with a small dash blinking on the top-left corner. Any help much appreciated! Thank you so much in advance!

Leon

 

Can you explain what you did before this error occured? I think you might just have to perform a clean install. Hopefully you have your Vista disc or Recovery discs.

 

Thanks for responding... I was partitioning and may have made a mistake...

A couple questions...
1. Is partitioning reversible with a clean install?
2. Is it possible to use the discs that came with the computer to "repair" Vista?
3. Since I forgot to back up, is it possible to fix this problem without losing data?

Thanks,
Leon

 

Bump, I know the bump rules, but I really need to get this fixed now!

 

brkhobowriter, did you re-partition your Vista Home Premium? If not, Then the boot loader might just be the problem. Boot up with your Vista Home Premium disk and use the auto repair function. That should work.

If you did re-partition your Vista Home Premium, then you might have a whole new set of problems depending on what exactly you did.

 

OH DARN... I have no idea what I did... But even if I did repartition Vista Home Premium, what should I do?

 

You should give a good hug to the backup DVDs you made before starting fiddling with the partition table. Because you did back up your data, didn't you?

Other options:
Grab a Linux live Cd (mepis, knoppixc, kanotix, ubuntu... the one that will work with your system - you have to try to know for sure) and see if you can still see any partitions.

If you see all your partitions, you can try to restore the Windows MBR with the Vista DVD: you have to run fixmbr (google for that).

If you can't see your partitions and even gparted (the linux partition manager) refuses to show you your disks you might try to recovery the partition table with a tool named "testdisk". Do a google search and prepare yourself to read a few pages of instructions to learn how to use it.

If you don't give a damn about your data, repartition from scratch - you'll lose everything - and install Windows again.

 

How do you repartition from scratch?
Although I do care about my data a lot, the computer is a lot more important.
And none of the data is actually very essential...

Thanks a lot!

 

And it would be great if you have a link to something that can teach me how to reinstall Windows and get my drivers and other stuff straight.

 

Here is a solution which could work without getting too technical.

If none of the data you have is that essential, your simplest solution might be to just reinstall Vista with your recovery discs (hopefully you made them). Beforehand check with Dell for the drivers for your laptop and download them. That way within a hour or two you can have Vista installed.

If your data is important though, go download a Linux distribution like Ubuntu, burn it to a disc, and insert it into your laptop as soon as you turn your laptop on. Then you can run Ubuntu in LiveCD mode. This means you are running the OS off of the CD, but it is never actually installed. Now in this way you will have access to all of your files, but most might not open/execute because they are Windows oriented. So just retrieve them from your computer onto external storage devices (CDs/DVDs/USB flash drives/etc) and move forward for a clean install with your Vista Recovery Discs you hopefully made. Otherwise you will have to purchase a retail copy of Vista.

 

There were some discs that came with the computer and Vista never really prompted me to create Recovery Discs. Can I use those Vista Reinstall Discs that came with the computer to clean install vista? Thanks a lot for the advice though!

Leon

 

This ought to help you,

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=157838

 

Thanks a lot!

But if I do that, will my partitions be erased and start from scratch (hopefully)?

 

Bump please... Trying to fix it by tomorrow...