Reformatting

[TheMagicalHindu]

1. Operating System - Windows Vista

2. Hardware setup - I have a HP Pavillion Laptop... dunno anything else about it really

3. What exactly happened leading up to the problem - My homework assignments (im a college student) kept getting "lost." As in I had them on my desktop, but if I restarted then tried to open them, windows couldn't find it, even if I had saved it. So I went to windows update and updated everything, then it asked me to restart my computer, so I did. Now everytime it turns on I get a "please restart your computer to finish updates." I tried to get around it, but when I get to the login screen it says my account has been disabled (I was the "administrator"). So I decided to reformat my computer... I put a windows vista pro CD in, and restarted, and now it loads to a blank screen with a blinking underscore.

4. Exact error messages - Blank black screen with a " _ " blinking.

5. Any antivirus, firewall software you are running - Nothing besides windows defender (that comes with vista)

Oh, i forgot to mention, I am trying to reformat the harddrive... and its not working. Vista came installed on the computer, so now I put in a vista pro CD, i dont know if that matters.

Update: When I boot up without the CD its the "Start up Repair" that keeps resetting.

[TheMagicalHindu]

Wow, update.

Apparently I just needed to hold down the control key while it loaded which got me into Set Up then I could run the CD from there. Thanks, sorry for your time, but I guess you can use this as a reference.

[davedarkstar2]

i,tis good to see you got it going,have you thought of getting youre self a small usb flash drive,say 1 gb,there handy for saving stuff on in case of a malfunction,i always back up important stuff on one before i shut down the pc,you can even get ms word etc to auto save every 10 or so mins while youre working,sure as eggs,even the best pcs will crash at some time and it can be heart breaking loosing weeks of work or an xl chart etc.