Friends Windows Vista Home Premium won't boot to desktop

Ok, I forgot to mention , prior to starting this thread I was going thru the options in the various menus that came up & amongst the many was the option to push F8 for Advanced option which I did & in there I did see an option to "repair disc".
No,I didn't try it because I knew it was unknown territory. Might that be an option or is yours better?
I'm only curious,but thought I'd ask first. And yes, I thank you for your help.

Here are some instructions:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/customize.html#usb

Hi, Reading through this, it's completely possible that the Vista O/S has got a damaged/corrupted MBR, which you might be able to correct with the Ultimate boot disk, it's what it's for.
All you need to do is download it from the page given, it will be an .iso file. (zipped maybe).
Then you burn it to a CD.
Then you change the boot order in the BIOS to be 1) DVD drive 2)SATA 1.
Reboot the pc and the CD will run, (instead of Windows). You choose MBRrepair and follow that.
But as you have 2 identical hard drives, are you sure you are booting Windows Vista from the correct hard drive?
Look on the motherboard at where the SATA cables plug in, look for the printing on the board.
You will see a label near each socket. 'SATA1' & 'SATA2' (or JSATA1 & 2).
In the BIOS screen you should see the boot order as 'First ; Primary SATA' and that means the hard drive connected to the socket 'SATA1'. It may be the only way to tell the difference.
Then if you are not sure what is on the other hard drive, select that one in the BIOS and reboot.
Would be interesting to know if this PC was home made or built to order.
Hope this helps rather than confuses !!

Ok, mike1959 as I pointed out previously, I have no discs to download to or burn to. I just have a USB Verbatim HD with 367 gb's of free space.
Following the cables to the MotherBoard, the drive on the top is labled as SATA 1, the drive below it is SATA 2.
I believe this PC was bought at a store,not home built or custom made to my knowledge. ANY CD's that came with it were thrown away a few years ago. A mistake they won't repeat.

I'm guessing you're talking about this part?
Making UBCD memory stick
To create a bootable UBCD memory stick, at the command prompt, type:

cd \ubcd-extracted\ubcd\tools\win32\ubcd2usb
ubcd2usb c:\ubcd-extracted x:

where X: is that drive letter of USB memory stick, which is assumed to be already formatted. If it is not already formatted, or you wish to force it to be formatted, you can add the /f switch at the end:

ubcd2usb c:\ubcd-extracted x: /f

Either of the above will create a bootable UBCD memory stick in X:.
Note that booting a USB memory stick requires BIOS support and is only available on newer machines. You can also expect to encounter more compatibility issues compared to booting from a CD, and some tools may not work properly when run from a USB memory disk.

Well, your only other option is to connect just one drive and re-install Windows fresh. If you could determine what drive was the C drive you could connect that drive. I have the ability to connect SATA drives and PATA drives externally using USB attachments. With your 1,377 post I thought you would be more experienced in the modern aspects of Google searches and computer repair techniques by now

Sorry if I have disappointed you but that is why I chose the name "learninmypc" because I'm learning.
I've read other posts about doing this type of pc work,but never got into it.
I guess I'll just tell the owner its more than I can handle.
I do know how to do Google Searches, I probably just mis understood/read your post.
I thank you for your help & patience.
Is there an answer to post#21? Just curious

That is the boot order.

Okay no problem. The "removable" third boot device would be for your USB flash drive. Once it is made bootable and contained the USBCD files you would set the removable as the first boot device, and turn on the computer with the USB flash drive inserted. The USBCD menu would appear on the monitor

Ok, since I admit I have NO knowledge on how to do this, I'm honest in telling you I'd need easy to understand instructions. Probably step by step.
Pardon me for saying this, but what is easy for one, may not be easy for others.
I too am guilty of using the power on button to turn a pc off, but I eventually learned the Start button is a stop button too.
Ok, so if you wish to continue, I'll do my best to follow your directions.
I'm guessing post # 21 is not an option??

Well you could try the F8 repair option, but you would have to make sure the original drive C was in the proper SATA connection on the motherboard, as it was before you removed the drives... I am almost 99% sure the F8 option won't work either. You can't use this "bad" computer to create a UBCD flash drive anyway. You have to access a Command Prompt, and this computer won't boot into Windows. Do you have a friend that would understand what needs to be done here? It is really not that complicated for a computer tech to do. You have done a great job on posting the pictures... Thanks

Hi, Just one or two other bits of info..... I think it is possible to put the Ultimate boot CD programs onto a Flash drive, but it's really designed to be burned to CD. I am in the UK and here we can buy 5 CD+R's for £1.
If you are not too sure about how to go about 'burning' CD's, there is a good, straightforward page at;
http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=61

You can download 'Imgburn' for free. If I can understand it, anyone can.
From your BIOS screen photo, your First boot device is CDROM, so it's correct as it stands, to boot from the Ultimate boot CD.
Say you wanted to change it, you would move the cursor down the list, press Enter, and you will have a list of the other drives, then you choose what you want, and then you have to 'Save settings and Exit' or it will 'forget' your changes.
So at Boot, a PC goes down the list to the first boot device, and if nothing in there, it goes to the second device, and looks for a 'bootable' disc in there, and so on.
So if you wanted to 'Boot' from a flash drive, you would go down the list to 'First boot device', press Enter, and choose 'Removable '. Press F11 to 'Save & exit'.
Then you would re-boot the pc with the flash drive plugged in, and it would start the Ultimate boot CD program. (hopefully.)
Of course there is a chance that the hard drive on SATA1 connection has a fault, and no amount of tinkering with software will sort it, and if that's true then it means buying a new one, and installing Windows from a real DVD as a fresh install.
A genuine product key will be needed too.
But I would try the easy and cheap way first of course.
And all depends on what O/S the PC needs to have on it, XP/Vista/7/8? or other.
Another way out of this is to not install Windows, but a free Linux distro. I use Linux Mint on my spare home made pc, (photo) and I use it on the 'net at least half of the week, and it's very easy to install these now, easier than Windows.......and free, and FAST.

Ok, here is my Google search for CD+R
Ok, the USB flashdrive I have is not empty,does that matter? It does have a few hundred gb's of space left.
I'm just hoping for the easiest way to "hopefully" get the pc going.
YES, this is new territory for me please be patient. I'll try my best to follow your help.
Is there a way to definetely find out which is the harddrive? Both labels look identical.

Hi, I tried to find out how much space you need to install UBCD, seems to be 290MB but some downloads are more.
Can you make 500MB free?
I did find this page which gives points 1, 2,3 to follow. (Scroll down to below the black screen image.)
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-and-boot-ultimate-boot-cd-ubcd-from-a-usb-device/
So you need to download the iso file, download the USB installer file, then follow the instructions.
The links are in light blue, so you can't go wrong.

I just don't know if the flash drive has to be empty to start with, but I would play safe, just copy everything off your flash drive onto your C drive, so at least you have it all backed up, should it not work for you.
If it was me I would use the 'Burn to CD' version, but it's your choice of course.
The CD version is more useful because many pc's won't allow booting from a USB device. But you can always set any pc to boot from a CD/DVD. Appears from your photo's you can, so in this case it's a good option.
(I find blank CD's in our 'Poundshops', no doubt you have similar shops, 5 for £1.)

mike1959 ,Ok, I just emptied a different 1 gb flashdrive & will have to use it.
Ok, clicking your link & going below the black image, is this where I start? imple USB Ultimate Boot CD How-To:

1. Download the UBCD50x.iso? If so, it takes me here http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
2. & of course I'm lost, sorry.

Hi, I checked that site.... the download is a torrent type, so I wouldn't use that one... instead I just went to this one, and it's ok.
Scroll down the page to 'Free system tools' heading and the first file is the one. Click on the orange Download link..it's .iso.
That should get that file on your pc. I would save it in case you need it again.
This is the page;
http://100-downloads.com/

Ok, I got it on the flashdrive all by its self.

Well, I followed the instructions, put the flashdrive in , shut it down & restarted it but it still went thru the same screen as before so I guess its a goner?

The flash drive needs to be made bootable. That what this command does "cd \ubcd-extracted\ubcd\tools\win32\ubcd2usb
ubcd2usb c:\ubcd-extracted x:"
You enter this command at a command prompt. You can Goolge "command prompt" if you want (with out the quotes)

Ok, to clarify, I'm very much able to do a Google search, but which one is why I don't do such in here. I'd have no idea which one of those About 13,900,000 results, is the correct one.
So how do I get a command prompt on this pc?

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsc/p/command-prompt.htm