When Windows refuses to boot and you can not even get far enough to press F8 and access advanced boot options, you probably think you will have to do a Windows reinstall, don't you? Well let me get you in a better mood. There is a very good chance of fixing it if you just follow this article. The only thing you will need is a Windows Vista DVD. We will be booting off this DVD and accessing Vista's own repair tools.

1. Place Windows Vista DVD in your DVD-ROM drive. First off, we have to convince your PC to boot off this DVD instead of hard drive. This can be done in BIOS (tap "Del" key when your PC starts booting up) under "Advanced BIOS features". All you have to do here is set your CD-ROM (even if it is a DVD or DB drive it is usually marked as CD-ROM) as your primary boot device. Then you have to save and exit.
2. Your computer will restart and before booting into Windows, it will display a mesagge: "Press any key to boot from CD". Press any key on your keyboard and your pc is going too boot from DVD.
3. Let it have some time and you will end up at the beginning of Windows Vista installation wizard, but we will be using it to repair your PC instead.

4. Now please configure your language, time and currency and keyboard layout settings. Then press "Next".
5. At the next screen please click on "Repair your computer" instead of going for a new Windows install.
6. The program will now search for previous Windows installations. If you have only one, there is nothing to worry about, because it will find only one - select it and press "Next"

7. A window named "System recovery options" will show up and this is what we need. At first I recommend to everyone to just use "Startup repair". This is will automatically look for errors and try to resolve them. If it detects problems, it will fix them and it can take quite a while. It may also automatically reboot a few times. If you are offered "System restore", press "Cancel".
8. 
   If "Startup repair" does not find any problems, we will use command prompt to fix boot manually. Run "Command prompt" by clicking on it and typing in this (without ""):

   "Bootrec.exe /fixMBR" and press ENTER
   "Bootrec.exe /fixBoot" and press ENTER


9. Now simply close Command prompt and click on the "Restart" button.
10. Your computer will reboot (do not press any key, when it asks you, if you want to boot from CD) and Windows should boot normally. All you should do now is disable CD-ROM as your primary boot device the next time you restart your computer (it is not necessary, though - you are improving boot-time for a few seconds, if it is disabled).

• Add New

Comments (5)

• 2010-08-20 00:01:30 |85.148.144.xxx| Robin Hunt  - Besides

  I also had in a strange way grub4dos installed. But didn't mattered.

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2010-08-19 23:59:49 |85.148.144.xxx| Robin Hunt  - HERO!

  Man, you are great! I was allready half panicking... Everything works again! The first option was allready good. (against my expectations, I thought I needed to go to command prompt)

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2009-10-03 05:21:00 |85.225.158.xxx| Jim  - Thanks!

  You're the best ! This really works !! Thank you so much, love you ;)

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2009-08-11 18:29:32 |84.9.59.xxx| lost but now found  - Thanks

  i dont usually leave comments but for this article i just had to say....super many times thanks

  • 0
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

• 2009-04-30 20:57:10 |70.55.93.xxx| Vince

  This worked for me, thank you so much.

  • 1
  • 0

  ReplyQuote

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Joomla components by Compojoom