Windows Vista Boot Recovery Made Easy

We all wish today’s PC technology could be as stable as, say, your microwave: when was the last time your microwave crashed or failed to start up? Unfortunately, because of the complex nature of hardware and software, there are too many variables and internal processes interacting with each other for things to go smoothly 100% of the time, all the time. Windows will suddenly reboot itself when you’re in the middle of an important e-mail or surfing the web, or simply won’t boot up at all. You may have experienced these annoyances from time to time with XP, and until Windows 7 becomes available for public consumption, you may be having a few of these issues with Vista.

Vista failing to boot up or inexplicably crashing may be related to a whole host of problems, hardware or software. The former possibly being a defective sound card or graphics card, the latter a bad software driver acting up or missing system files that are vital for boot time. The first thing you need to figure out is if it’s indeed a hardware or software issue. Also, almost everything in your toolbox that applies to fixing an XP boot/crash issue won’t jibe with Vista, so you’ll need a whole new set of tools. So read on, and let’s fill your Vista toolbox.

Vista Won’t Boot

Vista’s failure to boot up properly is a binary problem: hardware or software. Have you recently installed any new hardware into your PC lately? New graphics card, sound card, hard drive, more RAM, perhaps? Improperly installed or defective hardware can stop Vista from booting dead in its tracks. If you’ve recently installed new components, try taking them out and putting them back in. For example, maybe your new graphics card isn’t sitting right in its slot or your new hard drive isn’t tightly connected with its cables and ribbons. If that doesn’t work, take out the culprit piece of hardware (install a quick replacement if said hardware is needed for essential computer functionality) and give your PC a boot. Also, it may seem silly, but ensure that your computer’s power cable is properly plugged in and that your PC’s power switch is set to “|” (“O” is off, and “|” is on). The process is called divide and conquer, and if your PC boots up all right, then at least you’ve pinpointed the problem.

A software issue may halt Vista at boot time, too. Retrace your steps and determine whether you’ve installed any applications that may be acting up; uninstall and reboot. If that solves the problem, you’ll know there’s something wrong with the application. Software drivers for hardware are notorious for causing headaches. Make sure that all your software drivers are updated, or you may need to roll back to a previous version if a newer one is causing Vista to crash or fail at boot time.

Vista DVD Recovery

Vista’s crash recovery options can be accessed by popping in your Vista DVD and rebooting your PC. You’ll be asked to Hit Any Key To Continue, and you’ll be inside the Vista DVD menu. If your PC skips your optical drive during boot time and goes directly to your hard drive, you’ll need to make a setting change in your motherboard’s BIOS. Restart the computer, and hit either DEL or F2 (different PC makers use different function keys) and you’ll be taken to the BIOS screen. Navigate to your Advanced BIOS options, and select your optical drive as “the first boot device”. Save the setting and restart your PC.

Once you’re inside the Windows Vista Recovery Environment select Repair your computer. The recovery environment will go through the motions and attempt to detect a Vista installation on your hard drives. The Vista Startup Repair application is rather easy to use. It can be used as a sort of panacea if you don’t want to delve too deeply and get your hands dirty. The Vista Startup Repair is very adept at fixing damaged boot records, AWOL system files, software driver issues, and several other problems that may be preventing your computer from booting normally. Also, if you’ve set a system restore point, Startup Repair can access this in the case a rollback is required to make things right. If you didn’t store your files in the usual places—User folder, My Documents, etc.–then Startup Repair may delete them, so always make sure you back up all essential files on a regular basis.

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