Need urgent help!

[Niall!]

This morning I had no choice but to turn off my laptop by holding the power button.

Now, after turning on, I can't even log in to my user. It doesn't say the password is incorrect or anything, it just says welcome and stays there.

Same thing for shutting down, it just won't.

It's not an old laptop, so why is this happening? It's not a question of space either since I have at least 70 GBs leftover, at all times.

It is a Packerd Bell laptop with windows family edition.

Any help would be appreciated.

Also, I dont have a recovery CD.

Edit: sorry for the /g/ bit if anyone saw it, I posted on 4chans tech board before this.

[Flisker]

Windows Family edition? what's that?

[Niall!]

Oh sorry, typo.

Windows Vista Premium family edition.

[Berch]

I would say throw in your vista CD and see if vista can repair it but that's out the window if you dont have your disk have you tried booting up in safe mode and doing a system restore in that?

[Niall!]

Sorry for being the technological redard, but how does I do that?

[Berch]

Sorry for being the technological redard, but how does I do that?

No problem :D
Boot your PC up and continue to press 'F8' untill your faced with the 'Vista Advanced Boot Options' menu and select 'Safe Mode' this should start your PC with basic settings and allow you to go into your System Restore and hopefully restore your PC if it takes a minute to come up and dont look like it's working just leave it because it generally does take a while to load up.

[Niall!]

Thanks, I tried it and it won't boot up after trying to boot CRCDISK.sys

any guesses

[Berch]

Thanks, I tried it and it won't boot up after trying to boot CRCDISK.sys

any guesses

Sounds like you need a disc you not got any family or friends with the same version of vista you could borrow their disc and run the 'Repair' tool and give them the disk back cause that will probably solve your problem might not but worth a try only thing I can think of.

How many hard drives do you have plugged into your PC and what are they if you know? IDE or SATA?

[Niall!]

Sounds like you need a disc you not got any family or friends with the same version of vista you could borrow their disc and run the 'Repair' tool and give them the disk back cause that will probably solve your problem might not but worth a try only thing I can think of.

How many hard drives do you have plugged into your PC and what are they if you know? IDE or SATA?

No. I know someone who has Windows Vista Home Edition, will that work?
It probably won't as it's got Toshiba wrote on it lol.

I only have one hard drive as far as I'm aware, though I do have an external one that is plugged in at times.

No idea about IDE or SATA though.

[Berch]

No. I know someone who has Windows Vista Home Edition, will that work?
It probably won't as it's got Toshiba wrote on it lol.

I only have one hard drive as far as I'm aware, though I do have an external one that is plugged in at times.

No idea about IDE or SATA though.

Hmm.
I dont think it matters on the disc as long as it's the same version as you have installed it will work to repair you problem I cant think of anything else accept re-install windows which still again needs a disc.

[Niall!]

Hmm.
I dont think it matters on the disc as long as it's the same version as you have installed it will work to repair you problem I cant think of anything else accept re-install windows which still again needs a disc.

Damn. I restarted it and it did something new. It offered to restore the system itself. It did this for about half an hour and never fixed anything.

This is rather annoying, is there any way I can get a disk?

[Berch]

Damn. I restarted it and it did something new. It offered to restore the system itself. It did this for about half an hour and never fixed anything.

This is rather annoying, is there any way I can get a disk?

Only way really is to buy one, download one and burn it to disc or borrow one from someone who has the same as you.

[Flisker]

Do you have a partition called "Recovery"? If so, when you go into the BIOS (you can get into it with either pressing DEL key or F2) then go to Boot options and select the recovery partition as first boot device and then do some recovery. After it's recovered your install go back into the BIOS and put the first boot device back to your Vista install and you should be done.

[Berch]

Do you have a partition called "Recovery"? If so, when you go into the BIOS (you can get into it with either pressing DEL key or F2) then go to Boot options and select the recovery partition as first boot device and then do some recovery. After it's recovered your install go back into the BIOS and put the first boot device back to your Vista install and you should be done.

If you have any important files they will be lost though doing that method so make sure theirs no important files you remember or they'll be lost.

[Recursion]

If you wanna backup important files get an Ubuntu live CD and boot it to copy them to a USB drive.

[Niall!]

Do you have a partition called "Recovery"? If so, when you go into the BIOS (you can get into it with either pressing DEL key or F2) then go to Boot options and select the recovery partition as first boot device and then do some recovery. After it's recovered your install go back into the BIOS and put the first boot device back to your Vista install and you should be done.

Err how would I find out if I had this partition?

[Flisker]

Well when you went into "Computer" when your pc was working did you see another partition next to the C:/ (OS) drive called Recovery?

[Niall!]

errrr

I can't remember.

[Berch]

It might not of been called Recovery might of had another random name if their was any partition you didn't create that's probably it.

[Niall!]

Is there any way I could find out that I have this thing online?

[MrPinkPanther]

You dont remember seeing something like this?
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1406/recovery.png

[Niall!]

ah, no , I didn't have that.

[Berch]

Didn't think so.
Your kind of in a moo situation than.

You kinda badly need a disc to ever repair or re-install your windows OR if you havn't had your laptop long you can ring up the manufacturer and ask for discs if it didn't have a recovery partition and didn't come up with discs if it didn't they will probably send you some otherwise will you may have to download a copy and crack it but than you wont be using your legitimate copy.

[Recursion]

No, he could download a Vista disk and just use the serial on the bottom of his laptop, thus making an illegally downloaded copy 100% legal.

[Niall!]

I was thinking of doing that, but I have only one problem.

My system is in french. Would it still work if I downloaded an english version?

[Berch]

I was thinking of doing that, but I have only one problem.

My system is in french. Would it still work if I downloaded an english version?

You can just download a french version of vista (I think).

And yeah.. Didn't even think of what ***** said if you know your key which is on laptop like he said you can just download a copy burn to disc and use your own legit key and all fixed.

[Recursion]

You can select the language in the installer :]

[Niall!]

Ok thanks guys. The number is on the green sticker at the bottom right? If so, I'll start surfing round for safe downloads. Thanks.

[Recursion]

Yep, sure is :)