[dlesko]

i found something on another site:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial148.html

that said that i should start the system restore disk to load vista. It said that once i chose the language and keyboard settings it should give me the option to load vista or to repair the computer. Well, when i get to the language/keyboard screen i choose appropriately but then it asks for the vista code. i enter the key and then it begings to automatically load vista, it never gives me an option to repair the computer.

[Ars03]

just boot FROM the disc into windows setup and it will give you the option of repairing an OS, i think, worth a try. also... boot logging will not actually boot your computer in any different besides the fact that it logs what is loading and if the object was loaded successfully

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by dlesko

Thank for all the help. When i get to that screen, if i try to scroll down it just scrolls through the options i listed above. If i hit esc. it goes to a screen that lets me pick which operation system to start (windows vista is the only option). There is also a menu on the bottom of the screen that says tools. the only option there is windows memory diagnostics. Any ideas?

Then you are not booting to the Vista dvd. You need to use a Microsoft Vista dvd and then make certain the bios is calling for booting to the dvd drive before the hard drive in boot order.

[dlesko]

I am booting to the disk, i do not get all the options when the disk is not in. The computer did not come with a seperate windows vista disk, just the recovery disk, which has vista on it. when i put the disk into the dvd drive, i hit f8, which brings up the boot screen. i then chose the dvd drive to boot from and hit enter. you can hear the disk spin up and then the screen for installing vista comes up. there is no option to repair anything.........

[Rich-M]

Oh well you saved your mfgr $100 but you will need to buy one to repair this or restore back and lose all. You could take the drive out and install it to another pc to get off what is important.
Reason # 2 to have your pc built locally, you get a Windows disk!

[dlesko]

Yeah, ive learned my lesson on this one. Cyberpower has been nothing but trouble since i bought this computer last year. Im going to have to take out the drive, back it up to an external hd and then restore everything back to the original settings. What a pain in the a-s. Thanks for the help guys.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by dlesko

Yeah, ive learned my lesson on this one. Cyberpower has been nothing but trouble since i bought this computer last year. Im going to have to take out the drive, back it up to an external hd and then restore everything back to the original settings. What a pain in the a-s. Thanks for the help guys.

I wish what these mfgrs do was public knowledge so users would understand "the deal" they got. The low warranty on hardware, lack of Windows disk etc...you get what you pay for and it winds up being so frustrating for the unaware user. They should make these guys stamp it on the box ( then who would read it anyway?)

[dlesko]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I originally bought this computer from Cyberpower last July. When I received it the computer was dead, did not work whatsoever. I had to ship it back after hours and hours on the phone with really rude customer service. Took three weeks, then they sent it back to me. When i received it the thing still did not work. This time it would load but would shut down after while and not reboot. I had to send it back a 2nd time. This time they replaced the graphics card, motherboard, hard drive and fan assembly. Sent it back to me. Worked ok for about three weeks, and then started shutting down again. Had to spend hours and hours again on the phone with a very rude customer service. Turned out the Ram was either bad or incompatible with the computer. They then sent out new ram. Took over a week. I installed the ram; computer worked fine for about 8 months.....now this. I will never order from them again.

I went and bought an external enclosure kit at best buy and then pulled my hard drive. I used the kit to save data from my hard drive to my lap top. This worked really well and i was able to recover everything i needed. I then put the hard drive back into the computer and it is in the process of reloading windows. its not done but the computer has reloaded at least twice during the process, so that is a good sign. I also bought an external hard drive. I will be much better about backing things up now. Thanks for all the help.

[Rich-M]

Welcome sorry we could not have a better ending!

[dlesko]

Hi guys. well im still having the problem, even after reformating the drive and reloading windows. I think i have it narrowed down though. After windows loaded i was able to boot just fine. I began to add things back onto the computer and was having no problems until i loaded the drivers for my graphics card, which is a geforce 8800gtx 760mb. When windows initially came up it found the card but said it was a vga card and loaded a generic driver. This worked just fine until i downloaded the updated nvidia driver and installed it. I then began to have the same problem....windows boots but to a black screen, the screen does black right when the globe should be coming up. i can hear windows continue to load but the screen remains black. If i go into safe mode it loads just fine. if i uninstall the graphics card and reboot, it boots just fine, even out of safe mode. then i add the driver again and its back to a black screen. i tried rolling back the drivers, using old ones and i still have the issue? Any ideas? Thanks guys.

[Rich-M]

That sounds like the card is actually defective. Do you have another to try because it also could be the board at this point. Actually remembering all the "ill" you said about this computer, there is another possibility and that is ram is no good in spite of new ram change you did.
I would download and run memtest86...now that takes a while because you have to do 4 complete tests and each test has 8 passes and as much as one error you have your culprit. I wondered about them sending you replacement ram in the mail. Ram these days is so tough I never buy anything unless the configurators at Corsair, Kingston or Crucial list that model number for that board. Oh and can bad ram show up a year later even, you betcha! Ram errors are real nasty. They can be different on every boot and appear like software problems when the ram is close but not matched. I had a problem one time where bad ram in a desktop shut down a nearby laptop's computer access to Vpn. I had to go to a friend to ask a dept head at RIT if that was possible, even though I knew it was happening as I pulled the ram and the network opened up and he responded yes it could happen. I thought I was in the "Twilight Zone".
www.memtest86.com
You can try the Vista memory test but it is real elementary and may show nothing:
Run, "mdsched.exe" and hit enter. So if it shows something, great if not I would still run memtest anyway to be certain. But is sounds like bad video card or bad video slot. Is this an Ecs, Pc Chips, As Rock or Fic motherboard incidentally?

[Ars03]

get a program called eurosoft pc-check, it will test your motherboard and graphics memory. also, try to uninstall the graphics drivers and then install them using windows updates. i know microsoft has drivers for my 8800 gt through the windows update function. that might work for you. also try the beta drivers from nvidia.

but unfortunately, rich-m is probably right. your gtx sounds like an expensive paperweight. even if the microsoft drivers i mentioned work, i do not know how that would affect your gaming performance.