Gateway MT6730 Laptop boot up Problem

[jasonbourne]

I'm attempting to fix my friends Gateway laptop. It has Windows Vista on it. I power it on and I get to a screen called "Windows Error Recovery." There are two options for me: Launch Startup Repair or Start Windows Normally. If I select "Start Windows Normally," I get to the Vista startup screen and it just sits there. When I select "Launch Startup Repair," it goes through and tries to repair any disk errors and it might take an hour to complete. So I wait patiently and then after a little while the laptop restarts, goes straight to the Vista startup screen and just sits there. Nothing happens. My friend wanted me to just save some files on there and then reformat and reinstall the operating system but the laptop won;t startup all the way. I was thinking of maybe installing XP on the same harddrive so that I can gain access to her files that way. Would that be the way to do it or is there some other way?

The samething happens when I try to bootup in safe mode.

 

[darroll]

Copy a boot disk to your cd. Boot from cd.
Copy the files to a USB.
If you load XP, it will blow away the files.

 

[yuki953]

isnt copying a boot disc illegal? loading the files on usb? not posible...
You need the original disc that came with it, and you cant use any other or it will destory it, It doesnt even matter if its from the same version, it has to be THAT disc

 

[darroll]

If you are using XP/Vista, It's fine to make a boot disk. I use it with my floppy drive on all my computers. Vista gets tricky. To get the files off of yours probably requires that you pull out the hard drive and use another computer to move the files by using this hard drive as a slave hard drive.

 

[yuki953]

Ok, you failed urself from wat i understand

If you are using XP/Vista, It's fine to make a boot disk.

No... its not, its still illegal...

use it with my floppy drive on all my computers.

lol? are you saying copy the boot disc onto a floppy? ......

Vista gets tricky.

Ok, only thing u got right, but not rlly, all u need it the boot up disc (legaly)

To get the files off of yours probably requires that you pull out the hard drive and use another computer to move the files by using this hard drive as a slave hard drive.

That still wont work if HDD is corrupted

 

[JogaBonito1502]

What kind of HDD is it? You might consider popping it into another computer as a slave and just save the files. It's probably your best shot. Once you have that done, reformat (don't use the quick way) and reinstall Vista.