Windows Wont load

[benthefreak]

Hi peeps,

A friend of mine said that she was experiencing some problems with her computer the other day so i said i would take a look at it...

After pressing the power button, the computer begins to boot... however just before windows starts to load, it brings up the advanced startup setting (with the options to start up in safe mode, last working settings, normal boot etc..) however after selecting any of these settings the computer reboots... she said that she had some important work on there so formating the drive needed to be a last resort. She is running on Windows XP... she also mentioned that the previous night when the computer was still working that she had not shut it down correctly and had just pressed the power button

I suggested that i could put the HD into my computer in order to backup the files and then format it with a fresh install of windows...

However, when i placed the HD into my compter as a slave drive (Running windows vista) i encountered the same problem... I then removed the drive and told her to leave it with me for a few days till i can find a solution... upon putting my computer back to gether, i now STILL have the same problem even though no settings were changed on it

I have also tried to repair windows vista on my personal computer but whenever i try to boot off the Cd i end up with a blue screen of death that says if the problem persists to reboot the system in safe mode.

Does anybody have any suggestions???


I have the specs for my computer but not for my friends and can post them if you need me to... (both HD's are maxtor 80gb if that is relevant)

 

[benthefreak]

Being the impatient man i am, i continued searching for answers when i found this topic in a different forum... it helped me fix the xp system but i still remain stuck with vista...

http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic40747.html

To fix the XP system, i created a windows xp boot disk and added 3 files (cannot remeber the names (one was boot.ini)) as instructed from the microsoft website that is mentioned in the forums. From what i understand the problem was a corrupted boot.ini file.... However Windows Vista no longer uses the boot.ini file and was wondering if anybody knows anything about how vista boots?

one thing i have not yet tried is creating a vista boot disk as again i am facing problems with that... the only other machine that is running vista that i have access to is my laptop which doesnt have a floppy drive...

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!