Cannot Restart Vista III - SOS. need help

[AlexB]

Well, the idiotic situation had a happy, although equally idiotic ending.

I went thru some of the recent posts while logged in in safe mode and read
the post by Barb with an answer by guess who? Of course, Andre Da Costa!
This is what he recommended to Barb.

Take a look at the following article:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000217.htm
--
Andre

I went thru the article and another one referred from there:

How to enter the BIOS or CMOS setup.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000192.htm

They recommend pressing some keys on start up continuously until CMOS
options come up. The trouble is I do not remember now what actually worked.
I think F2 pressed continuously or a combination of ESC and something else.
I wish I could remember. I made about 30 various attempts before this one
worked. All of a sudden CMOS screen came up and I saw a choice: Windows
Vista or Previous Versions of Windows. I do have WinXP on another partition,
I decided it was safer to try the other first. I clicked WinXP and bingo, it
got me there. Signed out and next time a normal CMOS screen appeared like
nothing has happened. I got into my Vista.

I will be coming back with more questions. I need a tutorial as to how to
avoid such situations and it looks this place full of people of knowledge. I
need some reference articles as to how I can make a system boot DVD, etc.

Thanks Andre, although nobody answered my post directly.

 

[AlexB]

I just had a disaster that apparently many people have experienced and there
should be a solution. I was trying to delete some very unnecessary files
from my external hard drive that not amenable to a regular procedure with
deleting thru Windows Explorer==>Left Click==>Delete even with elevation of
all sorts and giving myself full control of that folder. I need to reformat
that folder eventually.

The only thing that worked was running a command prompt as administrator and
deleting files via DOS commands folder by folder. I got tired of it and
decided that I should turn the UAC temporarily and see if this could help me
to delete the directory wholesale. The computer said that it need a restart,
turned off and when an attempt to restart came up if won't start Windows.

I am typing this method in safe mode. What is the solution?

I have tried many things so far. When I start teh computer at the boot first
moment when F2 & F12 options appear none of them works. Only F8 works and I
can get into the safe mode although not even every time.

Tried to restore the system back to an earlier point--it does not work
although the message is successful.

I saved a system image with Windows Backup option but it is on a USB drive
and it has become invisible after a few hours. Perhaps I will be able to
bring it back to life. Even if I do I cannot get to CMOS setup to choose
"Boot from DISK.

I am going to get brand new computer in about 2 wks with the same OS: Vista
Ultimate. There will be a startup disk and recovery disk I guess. Is it my
only option to use that disk to try to recover this system?

There is a chance that it is all related to MagicDisk malware which still
dwells in my system.

 

[AlexB]

Yep, it is. I thought 2007 would end on a sour note but nope, still there is
some hope for Vista

I've heard someone talking about SP1 Has it been released?

Also, could you give me a pointer as to how create a start up DVD?

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Well its good everything is now in working order for you.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Vista SP1 has not been released, as for Startup DVD are you referring to a
Recovery disk? Not until Vista SP1 based on this post by Long Zheng:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070929/vista-sp1-recovery-disc/

 

[alexB]

Andre hi,

I do not have the last option under Maintenance:

You can find the tool in the "Start menu" > "All programs" > "Maintenance" >
"Create a Recovery Disc".

Create Recovery Disk is not on my menu.

I've got Ultimate. Why is it so?