Vista - Vista on DualBoot MacBook won't boot up, OS X boots fine...

I am running DualBoot on a MacBook with a base operating system of OS X version 10.4.11. My other operating system, which I installed myself, is Windows Vista. When my laptop starts up, I usually hold down the ALT key and then I can choose to run either OS X or Vista.

My problem is that startup of Windows Vista no longer works. I am able to start OS X just fine and run it without problems, which suggests that this is not a hardware issue. But when I try to run Windows Vista, the system loads for a few seconds and then restarts. I have tried running Vista in safe mode, but encounter the same problem. The inability to start in safe mode began when I was attempting to do a system restore from safe mode and my battery ran out. The system restore never completed and now Vista-side will not start at all.

My instinct is that I will have to reinstall or at least repair Vista to get it working again. There are files on the Windows side that I currently cannot access and which would be painful to lose. Is there any way that I can repair the Vista side of things without losing my data? If not, does anyone know how to do a repair/reinstall in a DualBoot situation such as this?

Setrett

Might be something as simple as a boot loader issue. Which OS did you install first? I suspect it was OSX. There is a built in app to repair it and a tutorial in the tutorial section. Its called BCDedit.

Let us know if you need help with bcd or anything

Ken