1. Do you have an option in All programs to create a recovery disk?

2. Alternatively, do you have a recovery partition?

3. Download/create a Vista Recovery Disk (32-bit x86 or 64-bit x64) here http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-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). This will not reinstall Vista but it does give you access to a few tools.

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.

This CD will also boot to an XP installation and allow the Command Prompt option to run programs like chkdsk.

4. Rather than install SP1 or 2, get the full SP3 package here http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/detai...;displaylang=en