Vista - Vista boot error

Hi, so let me just explain my issue and what may have caused it just so you might understand.

the other day i decided i wanted to install a new driver for my 9600gt oc graphics card, it installed correctly, i then restarted my computer, it kind of had a hard time restarting which concerned me a little but i didnt think to much of it, then when i tested out the card it wasn't quite acting up to par as the last driver, so i rolled back, i didn't restart. i then decided to do a window washer free space clean, (a program that looks at the free space on the computer and looks for any remenants of files) and my computer then started getting error msgs, so i was like eff this, restart. upon restarting my computer did the old

/boot/BCD

what ever error msg, but it couldnt open up the boot configuration files.

the windows startup repair doesn't even find the operating system but im able to search the C: drive in the command prompt.

what i originally found was that my computer decided that my extra hard drive for movies was the default boot drive, which it is not.

so i disconnected that drive fully (when the comp was off) and then back in the command prompt it found the proper drive, and the BIOS also said it was the default.

it still cannot find vista, even tho it is there, and the drive spins.

i have a feeling that vista lost the driver for this drive or something but there is little to no way to fix it from the startup repair. if anyone knows how to fix this it would be appreciated if you would share the answer.

this is pretty well as detailed a description i can give you because its what i have done up to now.

Acer T180
AMD 64 5000 X2
nividia geforce 9600 gt OC (galaxy)
4 g of ram
the rest is ****.

Hello Gord099, welcome to Vista Forums!


See if you can do a System Restore from Safe Mode to a point before you started to have problems, before the driver update.


Be sure to keep us informed!














Later Ted

im not sure how i would get to safe mode if the computer cant even start the boot. it goes through bios and then just stops once it needs to load the operating system with the boot configuration error. how would i do it from the disk? because its just a pirated copy so i could try to fix it, acer didn't give me a boot cd or anything

Hi Gord,

I would suggest you have a look at this tutorial and create a reliable disk that you can use to try to run a start-up repair on your installation.

Startup Repair - Vista Forums

Create a Recovery Disc

If you do have to use a pirated disk, to re-install, as long as you use the key that you have supplied by dell you should be OK, but of course you can never be sure what is missing or added to these pirate builds