Vista - Vista won't even start, not even in safe mode

I had a game I wanted ot make work but DEP kept stopping it so I turned off DEP by using the command prompt. bcdedit.exe/set {current] nx AlwaysOff and it worked. I then restarted Vista and all I get is a quick flash of a blue crseen and then two options, 1) Repair and 2) Start normally.

I have restored to an earlier point, I have also tried safe mode, I pressed F8 and tried starting with last known working settings and also F8 then a repair option, opened a command prompt and tried reversing the command but it didn't seem to do anything.

Any advice/help would be very much appreciated. I'm hoping not to have to reformat but I guess that may be my only option.



there is supposedly an answer on expertes exchange but I don't have access to it: http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/M..._24102075.html

so I guess no-one knows. I'm going to reformat it then. One question: last time I reformatted I managed to do it so I had a folder called windowsOLD with all of my previous data, can anyone remind how I specifically get that?

If I were you I would probably wait another day to see if anyone comes up with anything...instead of just 10 hours.

As for the keeping a folder during a format. If you did that then you didn't do a truely clean install. Because in order to do so you delete the partition that has all the info from the last install, and start over. You could save the files to an external hard drive or, if it is small enough, a jump drive.

Hope that helps.

The windows.old folder came up when you did the last vista re-install. You didn't format it, you just installed vista on the partition overriding the old OS. Your old folders (before you re-installed vista) will still be there in the windows.old folder.
Happy to help.

ok, thanks for the help. I now have another problem. I'm trying to re-install Vista either fro the recovery partition or from the disc I have but because Vista won't boot when I put the disc in, nothing is happening so I can't go in the options to re-install. any ideas? Is there a button I can press like F? to boot from the cd?

EDIT: ok, I changed the BIOS to boot from cd, I'm just sort of posting as I go along sorry

Have you tried to do a repair from the Vista disc ?.