Computer turned off during vista SP1 update

Hi, guys

My sister didn't listen to me or bothered to follow the directions on the screen that say don't turn off, and she turned off the HP laptop while vista sp1 was being installed. Now windows won't load. I tried running a system restore but that doesn't work. It goes through the process of restoring then says your system was not restored.

I also tried running repair from the vista upgrade disk the came with the computer but the repairs didn't work.

Is there anyway to fix windows without restoring the factory settings and loosing all the data? I can restore the computer to factory settings, but would lose the programs and files. Any way to restore windows and keep the files?

 

I'd make her take it to a computer repair shop and pay to have it fixed. That will teach her. Can you unistall the SP1 in the Add/Remove Programs? Can you reinstall SP1 from a download of it?

 

Problem is windows won't load. It refuses to start, and none of the repair programs that came with the computer seem to work. System restore says file in corrupted or unreachable. Worse comes to worse I will restore the factory settings for her, but according to her there's important files on the Hard Drive.

Any ideas that I can try at home?

 

Well, unfortunately you will have to do a factory reset.
However what you can do to back up the data is take the Hard Drive out and plug it into your desktop. The new HP's just use S-ATA hard drives, you have to just remove the adapter (pull it off, very easy)
Or another option is get a DOS Boot disk and copy the files to a thumb drive, however I know that my HP doesn't have a floppy so you will have to spoof DOS off the thumb drive.