How to access Startup Repair tools?

IANV · 2nd August 2008

Hello,
I am a PC user with very limited technical expertise, who bought a Vista machine a year ago - and has been roaming the internet ever since, just to find fixes for endless performance problems.
I was recently obliged to reinstall Vista Home Premium x86, after maybe a virus but probably a failed program uninstall had messed my system. I had previously been able to deal with startup freezes by rebooting into the Startup Repair tools (sometimes called WinRE) which my OEM had evidently put on the hard disc. I had to use their own-brand Vista disc for the reinstallation - and checking its contents showed me that disc doesn't seem to include Startup Repair (as the official MS Vista disc does).
Trouble is that the OEM (Evesham, UK) went bust soon after I bought my PC - and since I still get startup freezes, I need to get the tools from somewhere!
A site called neosmart.net says it offers Startup Repair as a free download for making a Vista Recovery CD - but can anyone confirm that this is both legit and effective?
A final puzzle - despite the reformatting of my hard drive for the clean reinstall, when I create Restore Points the system does offer to include the WinRE folder in these. That offer is empty, since when the startup freezes now I can only get basic recovery tools (i.e. Safe Mode variants) by pressing F8. But why does System Restore still offer WinRE if it's not there? Could it be on some hidden partition that I'm unable to access or something?
Any not-too-technical answers will be most helpful, thanks.

**BurrWalnut** · 2nd August 2008

It's a perfectly safe site. Download and create a Recovery Disk (32-bit x86 or 64-bit x64) here http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/ After downloading the image to your hard disk, create a CD in ISO format (a DVD is not necessary as it’s only 120MB in size). On the CD, there are two folders Boot (3.27MB), Sources (116MB) and one file Bootmgr (325KB).

It works in the same way as the Vista DVD, i.e. boot from the disk, choose ‘Press any key to boot from CD/DVD’ and Vista will start to load the Windows files. Select your language, time, currency and keyboard then click ‘Repair’ in the bottom left corner. Within the repair option there are five choices: Startup Repair, System Restore, Backup Restore, Memory Test and Command Prompt.

I don't know about the Evesham WinRE folder.

IANV · 5th August 2008

It was a bit of a nightmare getting the uTorrent program to download the ISO image for burning to CD - as someone with no experience of filesharing, I got seriously confused by the unintelligible instructions about configuring my router and setting a port, so needed expert help to sort that issue. But now I have the vital lifeline of a bootable Vista Recovery Disc.

So thanks, BurrWalnut for saving my life!

**BurrWalnut** · 5th August 2008

Well done!

May I suggest that you make several copies of the CD, just in case one 'goes bad'. Also, you won't have to go through the nightmare of downloading again.