I have a del 1525 inspiron that displays the windows error recovery. it gives me two options to repair the computer or to start windows normally. it doesn't matter which one i click on it doesn't work. i tried running the reinstall vista disc that came with it but nothing happens.

hi,
please insert your operating system disc in the drive and restart the computer .
Select the boot device as cd/dvd drive and save the settings in BIOS .
restart the system and boot it using the CD.

also, you can insert the disc restart the system in safe mode.
try to restore the computer using system restore.

It ius fetal error.

It means your harddisk need fix bed indexing and tyoehr thing.

For that boot your computer with bootable recovery disk.
Then g o to recovery consdole it is like command propmt.
Then type in command prompt."chkdsk /r"
then press "y"
then it fix eror on harddisk.
Then check.

your HDD may be corrupted, re-installing windows vista is one option. Your best bet is if you have/ can obtain a copy of windows vista run setup and try the repair wizard in the windows vista setup, the wizard automatically finds errors and missing files and replaces them therefore solving any errors in your HDD. you can also try to use the recovery wizard from your recovery disc. best of luck

You may have to try reloading windows. It sounds like a software problem.

The first step would be to: When the black screen with white text comes up with two options: star-up repair and start windows normally, press the down arrow followed by enter to attempt to start windows.
if this works then you are done. If not, press F8 repeatedly as soon as you power on the computer (before the black and white screen comes up). This will give a much larger range of options than the normal two. Select the top-most option, "Repair your computer". This will be a different repair than the norm. It should bring up a window which list many options one of which is system restore. Click this option and follow the prompts attempting to restore the computer to an earlier date. It is likely that this will undo any erroneous changes causing issues. The computer should automatically restart and boot to windows.
//halfs

try running diagnostics, when you turn it on when you see the DELL screen tap F12 until you see options look for diagnostics the run it. it will prompt if you have errors.

If reseating your hard drive doesnt fix it, Insert your Windows disk into your cd/dvd drive
As the machine boots up, hit the F12 key
This will give you the option of where to boot your machine from.
Select boot from CD/DVD drive

The disk loads some files and gives an option to either install windows or repair, select repair and boot onto Windows (select 1)

It brings you to a command prompt :

Type in CHKDSK/R

Hit the ENTER key

For that First when you power up the computer press F1 or F2 or "del" key to enter in bios .
Then go to boot option and set first boot device as your cd or dvd rom then save settings and exit.
Then it boot with your recovery disk.
Then follow the procedure and enter in recovery console mode.
Then type in prompt "chkdsk /r"
then press "y
then it fix error on harddisk.
Then check if still same error then again boot with disk then repair your windows .
Let me know if you need more assistance.
Thanks.

its bugged or so ...ir its missing files that were deleted by the anti-virus...
so ...format and reinstall ....be sure that ya format at least the C partition ....cause if ya have a recovery cd ..it will go under the last installation and the problem will reappear

Usually this happens when the vista boot loader fails. During boot up, keep tapping F8 and then select Disable Automatic Restart... and get the stop error code which usually starts with 0x