Vista - Stuck in Startup Repair w/o OS listed

Hello to the computer gods,
I am using Windows Vista Home Premium and it has been running great until this morning when I tried to turn on my computer. It took forever just to get
me to a random blue screen where it then stalled and about ten minutes later a box came up and asked me which language I would like to use. Since Wookie was not listed I settled for English. Then another few minutes went by until my computer painfully popped up another box asking which driver I would like to select so that I could run Startup Repair. However, there aren't any drivers listed! What do I do from here? I have a tendency to push the big button that says launch so I just clicked next without selecting any drivers (mostly because there weren't any to choose from). It then began Startup Repair, hooray! But hours went by and finnaly I came home from work and it was finally done repairing. It said it repaired everything and all I needed to do was restart and everything would be just fine and dandy. But was it? Well, that's where you fit in oh great computer gods. Will you answer my prayers? What should I do? Possibly a mouse sacrafice? A computer mouse that is...

DoubleJay wrote:
It sounds like hardware failure. You can try and troubleshoot this yourself
if you have the skills.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...ardware_Tshoot

If the computer is still under warranty, contact the mftr.'s tech support.

Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out suspected parts with
known-good parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are
uncomfortable opening your computer, take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of
BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

Thank you! I am glad you had such a fast response, but it seems my fears are realized, I will probably have to take this laptop to a professional so I don't do anymore damage to it. With my luck if I tried tampering with any hardware the next time I turned it on it would probably open a wormhole in the time space continuum and cause everything we know to cease in existence. Thanks you for your help though! If anyone has any last minute ideas let me know.

DoubleJay wrote:
It's a wise person who knows his/her limitations. Thank you for not opening
a wormhole. The last one was really hard to get rid of.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

"DoubleJay" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:e62b3f046fd821430af446c8449c524a@xxxxxx-gateway.com...Hello DoubleJay--

What intrigued me was this: You say you ran Startup Repair and it told you
it completed successfully. And at that point you posted to this thread
without telling us what happened when you restarted! It begs the question
what on earth happened when you restarted??????? In fact--did Startup Repair
repair DoubleJay's box?????? I dunno from what you've written. Malke says
it smells like a hdw problem to him, but it always seems to smell like a hdw
problem to Malke with all respect due because Malke posts a lot of good
advice except when every BSOD/Stop makes Malke think hdw problem.

1) Statistically the vast majority of blue screens, stop errors, black
screens, XP, Vista, and Windows 7 RTM and every other build no starts,
stalls at the Welcome Screen (Win 7 RTM has some of them in store for
people) are SOFTWARE problems rather than hardware problems.

2) You havenothing to lose by trying to fix a software problem and certainly
only minutes to invest in time.

3) Malke has a good hardware check guide, and you can check your hadware and
connections easily if you're using a desktop (you didn't say).

3) I don't know if you received a stop error, but they are often nebulous as
to the cause--the differential diagnosis can be non-specifically wide, and
many of them can point to mixed hdw or software errors. Again, the vast
majority are software errors.

In addition to Startup Repair, you can try the command line option at the
same place, and try to run the bootrec commands to see if they get you
fixed.

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd

You also have System Restore availabe as one of the repair options listed if
you have a restore point that's appropriate, and system restore was on.

Good luck,

CH

Hello Chad,
Thank you for responding to my post, and for your insightful points. To answer your question of what I had not described concerning the effects the Startup Repair had after my laptop had assured me it had fixed itself, the computer restarted and again came to the same blue screen asking me which language I would like to choose. Again I chose English, and it brought me back to the same place I was before at the pop up of some box that wanted me to pick an operating system, but to no avail because none were listed again. The only way I figured out how to get to the next box where I could choose from a list of Repair accessories including Startup Repair, System Restore, Command Prompt, etc., was because I had simply pressed next without selecting an operating system and I selected Startup Repair. I have used the System Restore before and brought a computer back from the grave, and I figured I could do the same this time. I selected System Restore from this list, but it gave me some message about how it couldn't work because it had no restore points to restore to. This is eerie because I am certain my laptop does and has created restore points. It struck me as if saying "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that" and now I am considering naming my laptop HAL, that is of course by some magic it emerges from it's current state of a paper-weight. I did not receive a stop error from the computer at anytime. I agree whole-heartedly with you, I don't have anything to loose from checking to see if those Bootrec commands will work. I did however try what the computer suggested when I clicked on System Restore (that I should type in some command to restore it) I am certain I typed it in correctly, but again the computer did nothing. Hopefully this new information might shed some light as to what the problem might be, and I warmly welcome any further diagnosis. Thank you once again.