Windows Vista laptop help please...

RightfulSin

Ok, so my laptop suddenly had issues starting last night. It is reasonably old, but it has had no issues up until last night. It froze completely during a tab switch on the internet. I had to cold shut it down with the power button, and then I hit it again to start it back up. It gave the usual "You did not shut it down correctly" and what not, and I did the start normally choice. Instead of doing so, it then black screened and went to

windows failed to load because the system registry file is missing or corrupt
status 0xc00000e9

I do not have a physical copy of the disc because when I bought it it came pre-loaded, and I lost the repair disc I made because I made it a long while ago and the laptop is fairly old. I have tried to find a file I am burn on to a disc and run, but no success. I have also tried making a repair disc of my computer I am on now, which runs Windows 7. I made the repair disc and put that into the drive of the laptop. It said it was laoding Windows files, but then it black screened with the mouse just kinda sitting there, with nothing else on the screen.

I am not sure what else I can do or try. If anybody here knows of a way I can remedy this situation, or of a good repair or file for Windows Vista that is good/simple to use for this situation, that would be appreciated.

Sterica

Moved to H/A, where you will be more likely to get help.

dispatch.o

Well, if it came pre-loaded, there is probably a recovery partition and software to reinstall from that partition.

Hit Del, f6, f9, or whatever it is for your pc to get into bios on startup and look around for a factory reset on/off option. Turning it on should run whatever ghost like clone the image was created with and/or reinstall windows with a factory restore.

Also, windows vista is bad. If you're a college student you should be able to get 7 or 8(.1) for less than 30$ through your school or microsoft. Which is a good option if you've removed or destroyed your recovery partition at some point.

Draygo

Step 1) Boot to recovery partition (tap f8 over and over right after you turn the computer on, select repair your computer), if this is impossible find a friend with a windows 7 or windows vista OEM disk - both will work for the following process

Step 2) Attempt to run system restore from the repair console, if this works after a restart you are done.
Step 3) open advanced tools or command prompt

Step 4) Go to the c drive by typing c:
Step 4a) see if there is a windows folder, type cd windows, if it does not give an error proceed to step 5
Step 4b) if it gave an error repeat step 4-4a with a different drive letter until you find your windows partition.

Step 5) run chkdsk with repair option by typing chkdsk c: /r replace c: with the driveletter you discovered in step 4.

Step 6) Note the end of the scan if you see bad sectors its not good, but if you see no bad sectors you probably are ok.

Step 7) Attempt to boot regardless of the outcome in step 5.

Step 8) If boot failed go back into the recovery partition

Step 9) type the following command sfc /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows /scannow
-note replace c: with the drive letter discovered in step 4.
Step 10) If errors were found proceed, attempt to boot
Step 11) If errors were not found or the boot fails the last step.
Step 12) Navigate to c:\windows\system32\config\regback replace c: with the drive letter discovered in step 4.
Step 13) "copy *.* .." (without quotes) and overwrite.

azith28

When you boot the system does it give you the option to go into safe mode? does that get you to windows?