Power Outage, now VISTA won't work

There was a power outage, then when I turned the computer on, VISTA boots but
never completely.
I end up with a grey screen with the mouse arrow and nothing to point at.
I tried to do a repair using the installation DVD, it tells me that"
"Your computer is running a limited diagnostic state. If you use System
Restore in teh limited state, you can not undo the restore operation.
Help topic are not available in this state".

I do not want to do a new installation and loose my files and have to
install and register everything again.

It has been doing that since 1:30pm and still nothing.

HELP.

Khaled wrote:
> There was a power outage, then when I turned the computer on, VISTA boots but
> never completely.
> I end up with a grey screen with the mouse arrow and nothing to point at.
> I tried to do a repair using the installation DVD, it tells me that"
> "Your computer is running a limited diagnostic state. If you use System
> Restore in teh limited state, you can not undo the restore operation.
> Help topic are not available in this state".
>
> I do not want to do a new installation and loose my files and have to
> install and register everything again.
>
> It has been doing that since 1:30pm and still nothing.
>
> HELP.

Power outages can 1) leave your operating system files corrupted and in
an unknown state; 2) damage hardware. If you haven't backed up your data
retrieve it by pulling the hard drive and either slave it directly in a
working XP/Vista machine or put it in an external drive enclosure and
attach it to a working computer.

Now do Vista Startup Repair per this link:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html

If that doesn't work, bite the bullet and clean install Vista *after*
running some hardware tests to make sure the hardware wasn't damaged, too.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Purchase an Uninterruptible Power Supply to help prevent damage to your
computer during power outages in the future. I like the Belkin 550's,
about $60. You can often get a really great deal on them from Amazon if
you choose the Free Shipping option.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User