Vista - 1 Drive/ 2 OS problem

I dont know what I messed up, but then to fix it I tried to reinstall Vista.
Now when I restart I get a black screen that asks which "Microsoft vista" I
want. Selecting either choice brings me to the same log-in screen and has
none of my old files.
How do I remove one of the choices and get back to a normal startup?

Hi,

Click start, type msconfig and hit <enter>. Go to the boot tab, click on the
unneeded entry and delete it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Carson1233" <Carson1233@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:53643239-E8AE-45FF-B3B4-3638E8CE091F@microsoft.com...
>I dont know what I messed up, but then to fix it I tried to reinstall
>Vista.
> Now when I restart I get a black screen that asks which "Microsoft vista"
> I
> want. Selecting either choice brings me to the same log-in screen and has
> none of my old files.
> How do I remove one of the choices and get back to a normal startup?

If you reinstalled Vista, rather than choosing to see if Vista could repair
an existing installation, Vista deleted your My Documents folder.
This has been a consistent and rather cruel fact of Microsoft OS
installation life. Win9x and XP will do the same thing.
If this is what you did your data is toast. You can try to run data
retrieval software but most likely it has all been overwritten.
Now you know why it is necessary to backup your files periodically to CD,
DVD or a second hard drive.
The other problem is the Vista boot loader. Yet again, dubious programming
decisions by Microsoft make it essentially impossible to remove the thing
unless you totally reformat your hard drive.
Of course if you are so unwise as to reinstall Vista rather than a real OS,
like XP, you will reinstall the wonderful Vista boot loader.
However you can set Vista so you do not see that menu at boot time.
It would be in your best interest to do some reading on the subject.

Follow Rick's advice. The other is just %$^%@^%$@$

"Carson1233" <Carson1233@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:53643239-E8AE-45FF-B3B4-3638E8CE091F@microsoft.com...
>I dont know what I messed up, but then to fix it I tried to reinstall
>Vista.
> Now when I restart I get a black screen that asks which "Microsoft vista"
> I
> want. Selecting either choice brings me to the same log-in screen and has
> none of my old files.
> How do I remove one of the choices and get back to a normal startup?