She downloaded the necessary files, which included a Vista Service Pack. She then restarted the computer as prompted.
When it came back up, she got the message that “Windows cannot start” (or wording to that effect…she can’t remember the exact wording). It gave her some options, so she tried "Start Windows normally. That didn’t work.
She then tried “find and fix problem.” She got the message “Problems found – cannot be fixed automatically.”
So essentially, now she’s hosed.
We have no idea how to even start finding and fixing the problem. At the moment we’ve got her backing up her hard drive, which the computer is apparently able to do.
She does have Norton, and she was at an official Windows site, so I doubt she downloaded a virus. I’m guessing that something downloaded improperly or incompletely, and rather than just “not working” it’s stalling things, but that’s just a guess.
Anyone else encountered this? Any idea where I can start looking for help?
When you can try booting it up again and get to the point with “Start Windows Normally” (sometimes you may need to press F8 during start to get the options), there may be a selection that is along the lines of “Start Windows with last good configuration” and that would be the one to try. If it will boot all the way, the I’d try reinstalling the service pack (there may be a way to try uninstalling the failed one first, but I can’t remember).
If the option for last good configuration doesn’t appear, then there should be a safe mode option, sometimes just booting into safe mode and then restarting normally is enough to fix things.
If ‘boot to last known good configuration’ isn’t one of the startup options, select ‘boot to safe mode’. It’ll boot to a really ugly dasktop, with 620x480 resolution and 16 bit colors. Go to start/programs/accessories/system tools/system restore/ and then try restoring to a date earlier than the bad install. There should be one every few days to choose from. This is the same thing as littleblue’s suggestion, btw, but a different way to get there.
To get the boot options dos screen if it doesn’t show up automatically, reboot holding the F8 key down.
If this doesn’t fix the problem (and it might not) you’re into the tedium of trying to uninstall the new stuff and/or repairing or reloading windows. Start at the add new programs function in the control panel with the ‘show updates’ option toggled. Uninstall whatever it was that got installed, and then try the above again.
Safe mode isn’t as lobotomised as it used to be, S1mon. Mine is pretty-much indistinguishable from the regular desktop, except for the words “SAFE MODE” helpfully in one corner. You can’t link to the internet and a few other things are forbidden.
Safe Mode and “Last Safe Configuration” are definitely the way to go.
Thanks all! I had also posted on the “help” forum at Windows “live,” but have yet to hear back from anyone there, and the other posts there didn’t seem to address this particular issue, so I’m really grateful for the input.
I’m going to have her bring the laptop out here today, where I can work on it. She said that safe mode “didn’t work,” but she may not have understood what was happening (and I’m sure she was panicking more than a bit…she LIVES on her computer, and she’s always so careful about downloads). I wanted to have her wait until she’d finished her backup before I started messing around with things, as she has a lot of her art on the machine, and we don’t want to risk losing it.
