Windows Vista Recovery Help

[bono_212]

So, I have completely destroyed my computer, I do believe. I just did something so incredibly stupid, I'm still reeling. I wanted to restore factory settings, so I backed everything up to an external hard drive, finally figured out that the recovery drive on my computer was why I didn't have a boot disc, got to the advanced boot menu, ran the factory restore program, and...it didn't move. It stayed at 0% for two hours. I couldn't cancel it, I couldn't stop it. I should have just left it run all night, because it must have just been in the middle of whatever it was doing because, in my stupidity, I restarted the computer. Well, first I got the bootmgr missing warning, I used my repair disc, and fixed that, but when Windows started, the majority of my programs were gone, especially all of the windows programs, and I can't do a thing on it. Firefox is gone as well, Chrome was the only browser left, and I can't download anything on it, when I do, the computer just tells me it can't find the file (though yesterday, when all this happened, I was at least able to download files at first). Is there...anything I can do? If I found someone with a vista restore dvd, would that do me any good? I'll try anything, if anyone knows, thank you for your help.

 

[LemonMelon]

1. Lose Vista.

or

2. Get a Mac.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way, people can proceed to post something useful.

 

[Liesje]

Is the computer still under warranty? If so, I would think that if your restore partition has always been effed up and you were not provided with a disc, they should send you something so you can reinstall the OS. What is the "repair disc" that you have?

You can use someone else's disc but it has to be the right version of the OS and accept your product key. I get all my Microsoft OS discs through MSDN and even when someone has the same version, they are not able to use my disc to restore their OS with their product key.

Maybe just get Windows 7? It's way better anyway.

 

[bono_212]

Is the computer still under warranty? If so, I would think that if your restore partition has always been effed up and you were not provided with a disc, they should send you something so you can reinstall the OS. What is the "repair disc" that you have?

You can use someone else's disc but it has to be the right version of the OS and accept your product key. I get all my Microsoft OS discs through MSDN and even when someone has the same version, they are not able to use my disc to restore their OS with their product key.

Maybe just get Windows 7? It's way better anyway.

The repair disc is an iso image of the installation dvd, but it can't restore windows, only do minor repairs. The comp is definitely not under warranty any more .

I think maybe I will just get 7. It's another $100+ investment, and I just bought this external hard drive, but I think it's necessary.

 

[Liesje]

Are you a student? Windows 7 is like $65. Or if you are computer science, engineering, or information systems student see if your school has MSDN and it will be free.

 

[bono_212]

Are you a student? Windows 7 is like $65. Or if you are computer science, engineering, or information systems student see if your school has MSDN and it will be free.

My friend just informed me about the discounted price, I'm buying it now. . Didn't want to buy an upgrade for a computer I'll be replacing asap, but I need the computer now, so, gotta do what I gotta do.

 

[Galeongirl]

Getting rid of Vista is the best solution to any problem with Windows Vista.

 

[bono_212]

Getting rid of Vista is the best solution to any problem with Windows Vista.

I know, I know, and I'm pretty excited to experience this side-snap thing I keep seeing advertised, but. God, buying a program, even if it's only $60 that I'm going to be replacing soon enough sucks.

This one COMES with Office 2007 though, so that's cool, though I've been beta'ing '10 for free, so really that was a win/win.

 

[Galeongirl]

Well you could always get the new computer without windows installed?

Office 2007 is very pleasant once you're used to it.