[jfroda]

Ok, so here is what happened. I recently installed "important" updates that were recommended for my Sony Vaio VGC-LT10. Immediately after they were installed, my computer had all sorts of errors. The first thing I did was I tried to system restore it to before the update, and it said it was successful. However, when I restarted it after that, Vista would not load at all. It tries to, but it keeps cycling back to the windows error recovery screen. No matter what option I pick, it always goes back to that screen within 10 seconds or so. I am also unable to boot windows using any of the options from the advanced boot option screen (trust me, I've tried them all). I finally got fed up with it, and tried to recover all my data and restore the c drive using the iso file from the following website:

http://neosmart.net/...-disc-download/

Finally, I was able to get into Windows recovery. Yeah! I did a test, and it said all the hardware was good. I plugged in my external drive, which it found, and I tried to recover my data. It said it couldn't because it could not locate the c drive. So, in exhaustion, I tried to restore the whole thing to factory settings, but it couldn't do that either. Of course, when I bought it a year and a half ago, they did not include the Windows disk that I always got from other purchases in the past. I have a feeling this is what I need the most to repair the os.

That is what has happened so far. Below is my error message and codes I was able to find. Any help would be much appreciated, as I'm in the Air Force stationed in Cairo, Egypt, and the knowledge of Vista here is most likely very limited. I'm very nervous about taking it to a local repair shop. Thank you for your time.

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent further damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again,

follow these steps:

Diable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation or backup utilities. Check your hard drive for

configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run CHKDSK/F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart

your computer.

Technical information:

STOP: 0x00000024 (0x00190444, 0x866663A0, 0xc0000102, 0x00000000)

[Advertisements]

A STOP 0x24 (shorthand for the message that you mentioned) is an error in the NTFS file system that's on your hard drive.

This usually is due to one of serval things:
- corruption of the structures that affect the booting sequence of the hard drive.
- corruption of the file system
- failing hard drive

To figure this out use the command prompt option in Startup Repair. Type "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes)into the command prompt window and press Enter. Once that's done, run the Startup Repair to see if that helps.

If not, you'll have to perform a hard drive test with a bootable disk (usually available from the website of the hard drive manufacturer). There's a list of links here: http://usasma.vox.co...iagnostics.html

[usasma]

A STOP 0x24 (shorthand for the message that you mentioned) is an error in the NTFS file system that's on your hard drive.

This usually is due to one of serval things:
- corruption of the structures that affect the booting sequence of the hard drive.
- corruption of the file system
- failing hard drive

To figure this out use the command prompt option in Startup Repair. Type "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes)into the command prompt window and press Enter. Once that's done, run the Startup Repair to see if that helps.

If not, you'll have to perform a hard drive test with a bootable disk (usually available from the website of the hard drive manufacturer). There's a list of links here: http://usasma.vox.co...iagnostics.html