June 15 was Father’s Day, but what a day it was. Windows Vista on my computer resembled the Titanic-it crashed and sunk. If you’ve been following my Startup woes posts, you’ll know how I was faring. Toward the weekend, Vista was behaving like a very sick OS; fortunately I could still get it to boot up in Safe Mode and backup all my important stuff. It refused to boot up in Normal mode, hanging during the process.
The irony was that on Sunday I tried inserting the Vista DVD and did a Startup repair. After it was done, I started up in Normal mode, and lo and behold, BSODs (Blue Screen of Deaths). It was sink or swim time, and Vista was doing the former. And it also wouldn’t start up in Safe mode any more.
Well, what else can I do? No other choice except for the dreaded format and reinstall. I’d go for this option only when my other choices don’t work. It was time to take the sledgehammer out!
As of now (Monday June 16) I’ve got the OS up and running, together with most of my necessary programs. Grr…hope this new install will last me for a long time. That last install was 10 months ago, but of course I’ve installed and uninstalled so much crud that…well, I can’t blame Vista, can I?
And Doris, don’t get me started on that Programs and Features thing. I don’t know what the hell happened to it. 
Oh man what a PITA for you. I’ll keep my comments to myself on this one though LOL!
I won’t ask about “you know what” as you’ve just managed to get yourself back up and running.
My OCD nature dictates I do disk imaging for this exact scenario – I can’t be arsed spending a weekend reformatting and reinstalling and still having program installation to go. Of course, I have no idea HOW to mount my disk image, and it would likely take me ages to figure it out LOL.
The main thing is you are indeed back and I for one am glad you are!
Thank you, Lisa and Doris. This format and reinstall is indeed a pain in the you-know-where, but sometimes it HAS to be done.