You should be able to go to a command prompt from the repair menu You would need to find out the exact file and location that Thanks in advance for any and all advice! I would like to avoid reformatting, of course, so I'm asking you wonderful folks if you have any ideas! My only thought is trying to re-install SP2 through the CMD prompt, but I have no idea if that's possible or how to do much of anything in CMD. He thinks that the file he renamed was wab32.dll. I'm guessing that file was required for Windows to boot properly, and that's why Vista now can't boot. So he read some forum somewhere on the internet which told him to rename that file so that the SP could install the new version, which he did. He tried to install Vista SP2, and one of the files in the service pack would not install. Here what I think happened from what he described. Each time it tells me that it cannot repair the computer automatically. I've also tried running it from the Vista CD (I don't think that's actually any different, but it seemed like it was worth a shot), and still no dice. I've let it run several times, and it doesn't make any difference. The laptop is in the dreaded Vista startup repair loop. I am working on my tech-illiterate friend's laptop, which is the first problem, because I can't tell you exactly what he did to screw it up.
