so this is long and i am not a geek so pls forgive my lameness in advance

i am running vista home premium that came installed on my toshiba.

it was running a tad strangly but still running (not noticing the the computer name had been changed and various other items)..

then i was doing a normal update of adobe pdf reader and the install crashed. after that the microsoft installer wont work, i cant boot my computer normally altho it does open in safe mode - however, the windows installer wont work - even in safe mode.

when i try to boot it normally it seems to start fine but hangs once the desktop appears.....

i have tried repairing the startup process via the vista repair disc.
i have tried restoring back to a previous restore point
nothing so far has worked.

after doing the above i cant even start my computer normally (altho i can boot in safe) it seems to begin the process then the screen just goes black altho the disk light is still on....

i am now just about to reinstall my entire system but i would rather not have to do this....

is there anything else i can try? i have a time sensitive deadline that needs to be reached (of course) so i cant play around with this for too long.

also - how can i backup my programs so i dont have to reinstall all of them - is that possible?

i do have a backup of my user folders.

many many thanks for any insight

Programs can not be "backed up" so that you don't have to reinstall them. You would have to reinstall all programs. The installation of programs scatters information all over the system drive, not just in the "Program Files" folder.

First I would start it up in safe mode and then have Windows schedule a disk repair.

Start>Computer.
Select "C" drive
Right Click and choose Properties.
Select Tools TAB
Click "Check Now" button and select "Automatically Fix File System Errors" checkbox.
Click "Start" and then "Shedule Disk Check"
Close all the windows and restart. The computer will come up with a countdown before the windows log on starts. Let it run the disk check and fix any disk errors.

Start again in Safe Mode
Start>Run and type
msconfig
in the run box
Click OK
If you do not have "Run" showing on the start menu, you can:
Rightclick in a blank area of the Taskbar and select "Task Manager"
When "Task Manager" opens, you can use
File>New Task (Run)
When the Configuration Manager opens
Select "Diagnostic startup"
This will allow Windows to only start up basic services and devices only.
Restart the system again allowing a normal startup of Windows and see what happens.

By now your system should be able to start up without crashing long enough to start troubleshooting.

Trouble shooting takes time, especially done through a forum.

Do you have any anti virus / spyware protection on your laptop? It would seem not with things acting as you describe.

thanks Jim!

I ended up going and buying a new retail version of Vista as the repair disc that came with my computer didnt work (of course!) (never buying a toshiba again!)

anyway everything is almost back put together now.

thanks so much for taking the time to reply

The repair disk that came with your computer is only meant to return the computer to the same state as you first took it out of the box. It is not meant to be used like a full version VISTA DVD.

This is typical for most any brand laptop and most brands don't even bother to give you a prepared "Reinstall Disk", you have to make them yourself using the recovery partition and your own blank CD/DVD's.

In your case where you have backups of your documents and other items you want to preserve, a reinstall from the Recovery Disk followed by re installation of your programs may be the best solution as troubleshooting a system can take more time than starting over.

This is why it is a common practice for commercial repair shops to simply format the hard drive and restore the system to it's initial state as a starting point to servicing a system. This way, they know all the virus, spy ware and software problems are not the cause of the system's problems and they can concentrate on any hardware problems that may show up afterward. The only problem with this is that you lose all the documents and data you produced. They make sure you understand that they are not responsible for this loss before they take your system in.