Hi Checkurtech,
First, I would like to thank you for your post.
After quite a bit of time on the telephone, my friend got me going. I'm not certain how he did, but I do know that it included booting in safe mode and system restore back to February 10th. I know he had me tapping either F8 or F11. But since I will send him your post, he will know what you are talking about.
Being I dare not shut down because I am afraid I won't be able to boot again, I now have an annoying situation going on. Once we booted, I had 9 windows updates. 5 completely installed with restarting and 4 require a restart. So now, every 4 hours (the most extended time period) I get a pop up reminder to restart to finish installing important updates. NO WAY, because I assume I still have the problem.
Anyhow, back to your post for the solution so I can shut down and restart my laptop with peace (and install the Windows updates). I have Window Vista Home Basic 32-bit Operating System. I do not think my friend has access to the Vista disc. It sounds that if I get a copy of Vista off the Internet "so you can complete these commands", that this is a second step and I still would need a copy of some Vista disc. Is this correct? If so, being I have Vista Home, what Vista disc would I need?
At this point I would rather not shut down to see if "F8 and tried "Repair My Computer" from within "Advanced Boot Options"?? If you have not try that first before going down the Bootrec commands" works. It seems to make more sense to be prepared with the disc route before I shut down.
While I will pass your post to my friend and he will probably understand all your suggestions, based on my configuration, may I ask you to explain exactly what discs I need or can we get everything we need from the Internet?
Thanks much,
Anovice