One of my Vista system on a laptop wouldn’t boot. Booting from the Vista CD, automatic repair wouldn’t fix it. There is an option for command prompt, but it is not a recovery console I used to see in earlier editions of Windows. When I opened the command prompt it came up with the prompt “X:\Sources>”. I type “help” there was none. I was intending to fix up the boot using the recovery console as I would with XP. I wonder now how I can do it like what I would with XP.
I used a Windows 7 Repair Disc I created with my new Windows 7 system it seemed to be able to identify the Vista OS. I didn’t go on as I was afraid the process would muck up the Vista system. I want to retrieve a lot of files from the computer via a network before I re-install the computer. I haven’t tried to take the hard disk out and connect to another computer in order to retrieve the files. It is in a laptop. I try to avoid it.
I haven’t come across a Windows Live CD like BartPE that can connect to an existing network. At present I try to connect to my Windows network with a ubuntu live CD. I am still trying to boot up the un-selfbootable Vista system and have it connect to a Windows network in order to transfer the files. Perhaps I can install Vista in situ on top of the existing Vista without wiping the existing system. That should leave the existing data files or documents intact.