Can't boot from disc or into Safe Mode

Help!

I recently tried to install the stand-alone of SP1 for Vista 64-bit, and now it seems I have an expensive brick on my hands. I continually get the Windows Error Recovery screen(Windows has detected an improper shutdown etc. etc.), but after that, no matter what option I choose, I can't get into Windows. I've tried booting into Safe Mode like 50 times, and it freezes at a certain point while loading drivers every time, blue screens, then reboots. Wash, rinse, repeat. I've tried booting from the "last working attempt"(or whatever it's called) to no avail. I have my Vista OEM disc, and I've tried booting from it, but once it gets all the files loaded up and to that little Windows loading progress bar screen it crashes shortly thereafter. Every time. I installed a game last night(GT Legends) and Vista didn't seem to like the drivers for it, so I uninstalled it, no big deal. But maybe that's the cause of my problem. At this point I'd be happy just to be able to do a reinstall. Whatever allows me to use my notebook again.

It's a new Compal Fl90, I got it from Pro-Star. Any ideas?

 

Reinstall.

 

It's possible you have a bad hard drive or bad RAM. You can test the RAM by following the memtest guide in my sig. Another test would be to see if you can boot into a Linux liveCD (like ubuntu), which boots and runs from the DVD, and it will not install onto your hard disk.

When you try to boot from the OEM DVD, where is it crashing? Loading stuff from the DVD? Copying files to the hard disk?

 

I would if I could. I'm not given the option to. The Vista OEM disc crashes after it's loaded up all the files and is on the Windows loading screen. You know, the black screen with the green progress bar at the bottom when you first boot up your machine.

This must be because of SP1. This happened immediately after I installed it. I ran a test on the RAM and it's fine.

Anyone have an idea on what I can do to just be able to do a reinstall?

 

I second this idea. If the Ubuntu live CD boots up, your notebook is probably fine (it might have a bad hard drive though). If it doesn't, the problem is more serious.

If all else fails, completely format the hard drive (use a windows XP disc if you must, or get some partition software from the net) and try to install again. I would imagine that the Vista disc searches for present Vista installations, finds one, but since that one is FUBARed (I love that word) it doesn't work.

Hope this helps.

 

Use System Restore. Vista would have created a restore point just before it began installing SP1.

 

Get a little piece of software called wininternal ERD commander, its a live boot, burn image to cd, I am sure you can find it lying around on the internet. Its always kept up to date, it has a bunch of nice little utilities that allows you to blow away passwords, partitions, recovery. Give that a try.