Major Problems with Vista

[Goldenfarmb]

On Saturday I was prompted by the automatic windows update tool to install the new service pack for Windows Vista. I had not done any research on it so I declined it. I went to sleep that night and woke up to my laptop with black screen. I rebooted it and while it was sluggish I was able to get it to the sign on screen. I signed in and it said i was completing the update. I was puzzled by that but I could not stop it at that time. Once it was finishedthe screen went black again and I got some strange error messeges:

Windows explorer has stopped working: ( it say microsoft is searching for the problem and then comes back with )

A problem has caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

It continues to cycle thru different programs including but not limited to:

Microsoft feeds sync
Windows host process (rundll32)
avg Network scanner

All this with a black screen.

I Hit alt-ctl-del and get to task manager, but after a minute it goes thru the same process as above.

I got got into system repair and rolled back to the date prior to th eupdate and booted up. But the same issues are still happening. The only difference is that it does not go thru the process of finishing the update.

Any idea on what I can do to get my laptop back, or at least get some of my wife's info off of it?

Thanks in advance.

GFB

[CrowdAds]

[johnrr6]

hold power button in to force shutdown.....

Pull any batteries and let it sit for a minute....

Reinsert Batteries...

Boot up----but keep tapping the F8 key during boot up

go to "last known configuration that worked".....

Try that.

if that doesn't work----try to get it to boot in Safe Mode

using the same F8 key at bootup

My guess is that the update got borked somehow----but if you can get it back to normal----and re-run the update----you will be fine....

make sure you have all your power saving stuff like hibernation turned off on the laptop----and have it plugged into the wall. I've seen updates get borked because the laptop (for whatever reason) went into a power saving mode----or hibernation during the update process.

[Goldenfarmb]

Pulled battery and power. Let sit for 30 mins. Reinserted both and went to the "last know good configuration". Got the same result.

Booted into safe mode. I see "safe mode" in the corners and the vista build number at the top of the screen. Other than that the screen is blank and I cannot access any programs. Even when I hit the windows key I get nothing. I can access task manager like before but nothing else.

Any other ideas?

[johnrr6]

Put in the Vista DVD and run a Repair/Recovery off of it.

this is not a "Repair Install" in the classic sense of Windows XP

during the Start up process of the DVD----it will give you an option to "repair"

run through that sequence and it might be able to fix the problem----it will also bring up system restore if it can't fix the problem.

You could then restore to a much earlier time frame---way before the update.

I've used the Vista DVD repair routine a couple of times and it worked nicely.

At least got the computer back up to a useable state.