[psych69]

I have a laptop with Vista Home Premium, and it won't start up properly after some "Autologon failure". My laptop blue screens right after the simple loading screen with the moving green bars. I've tried using the Startup Repair tools, and none of them work.

I've decided I'm going to reinstall Vista. I have the installation disk and everything, but I need to retrieve some data from my hard drive before doing so. What tools do I need to be able to boot up the computer (not necessarily into Windows), access the NTFS drives, and copy files over into a USB drive?

Also, I want the hard drive to be completely reformatted prior to reinstallation just to make sure everything starts from fresh. I haven't reinstalled before, so will Vista do that automatically or what?

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using the Startup Repair tools

Do you have Vista DVD?

[Broni]

using the Startup Repair tools

Do you have Vista DVD?

[psych69]

Yes, I do have the Vista DVD and I tried running Startup Tools from there. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go ahead and reinstall Vista, but I really just need something to retrieve those files first.

[Broni]

Since you have Vista DVD, you can try repair first. Your data will be safe.
http://www.vistax64....tall-vista.html

[usasma]

You'll need either a Live Linux distribution (outta my league) or a copy of either BartPE or the Ultimate Boot CD that has the ability to utilize the NTFS file system and the drivers for your USB devices.

You can also just purchase an adapter to slave the hard drive to a Windows system and copy the data from there. You can get an adapter for about $30 US (I use this one: http://www.cooldrive...ndidehadr1.html )

[psych69]

I tried the repair option from the Vista DVD and that didn't work.

Wouldn't I need to take the hard drive out of the laptop in order to slave it to another computer?

The Linux Live thing is actually what I was originally hoping for. Does anyone have any specific suggestions for this?

Thanks for the Ultimate Boot Disk suggestion. I'll look into that.

[usasma]

Yep, to slave it it's gotta come out.

I don't know anything about Linux - so I'll leave that up to others.
The Ultimate Boot CD is a handy tool that's got a lot of utilities to help you out. IMO it's easier to use than Linux.