Vista - hard Drive boot partition problem

Hello,Recently My sisters Windows Vista Home Edition PC Crashed,and she used system restore or recover factory settings, Anyhow.. Now it only runs on The recovery partion, which is 7 gigs and is running on 0.0 mbs left (low disk space)


Ok let me get to the question:

How do I set the C:\ to boot windows and save files to it instead of me running the PC off recovery partition with no space left?

I need good directions because im a noob

hello ipartynaked, and welcome to the forums,

this is a little confusing

vista requires 15GB to install and run. so are you saying that you can now only access the repair/recovery partition?

can you post more information on your system (make, model, etc) and hopefully we will be able to assist further.

Well the recovery partition says it has a maximum of 7 gigs. which has 0% of that left right now.

I just need to know how to run her C:\ with all her files instead of this recovery crap,
I can explore the C:\ and browse her files for her while on the recovery, so i know its all intact But i dont know how to start windows with that drive instead of this.

Sorry I know im confusing, I just dont know how to explain it well.
I cant give you her specs because it its disconnected and at her house.

this makes perfect sense

the recovery partition is a portion of the hard drive used by certain manufacturers,[Dell, HP, and others], to provide a system to restore the computer to the state it was in when it left the factory. This system is normally invoked by either pressing a key as the computer is booting up, or by use of a special disk, [CD, DVD], which is inserted into the drive and the computer started up, this system can also usually be started from within the normal windows system.

the C: drive is normally what is known as the active partition and would normally boot automatically when the computer is switched on what may have happened is that when your sister attempted the recovery process something has gone wrong and the recovery partition as been set as the active partition.

if this is the case then you will need to use an off-line partition tool to correct this I can point you in the right direction to obtain such a tool and guide you through it's use, if you feel confident enough to attempt this.

it may be the case however that if we can invoke the recovery system that will solve the problem without the quite steep learning curve that the use of a partition tool would involve.

it is quite late here [UK] so I will be going off-line shortly if you can get as much documentation from your sister as you can I will be back on-line tomorrow and we can attempt recovery then.