Laptop won't boot up

Hi all,

My friends laptop won't boot up & he's asked me to have a look at it (I'm marginally more computer literate than he is!) It's a Dell Inspiron 1720 (Model PP22X) running Vista. Currently, on boot up, I get a black screen with white lettering that states "Windows Error Recovery. Windows failed to start, a recent hardware or software change might be the cause"...

I then have two options, to "Launch Startup Repair (Recommended)" or "Start Windows Normally". Both options eventually lead to a black screen with a white arrow/cursor, which I can move with the touchpad, but everything else is unresponsive (I have to hold the power button down to turn the laptop off). Any ideas?

Thanks in advance, Ben.

If you have the Vista system disc you could try to boot from that and launch the recovery option.

Thanks for the reply. I already asked him if he has any of the disc(s) that came with it & he's had a good look, but unfortunately they've gone AWOL since his house move.

Can I download the recovery software on another PC & burn it to a disc?

Yes. Here is one option but there are plenty of others.

Rescue Kit 11 Free Edition
Instant system and data recovery kit may help it should always be in every home for when emergences crop up

Key Features
Fix the majority of boot problems with Boot Corrector
File Transfer Wizard - Retrieve valuable information from disks when a system fails to boot and save it to another hard disk/partition or CD/DVD
Undelete partitions

http://www.paragon-software.com/free/rk.html

Download and burn the Falcon4 UBCD ISO, then boot from it. choose MS DART 6.5 from the menu.

I had a similar problem on a Advent laptop last year. It was a faulty stick or RAM. I removed the additional stick and the laptop booted. That was after purchasing new recovery discs, which didn't work (as that wasn't the problem).