Can't start Windows Vista (hard drive isn't recognized?)

Hi.

Suddenly, my computer freezed (just like it has been doing for some
time now).
When I restarted it, the computer asked for the Vista DVD, so that it
could repair some files (I couldn't even boot into Safe Mode). I put the
DVD inside the drive, and choose the "Repair your computer" option, but
it reports that no Vista installation is found...

I then boot into the Rescue and Recovery environment (that is a
Thinkpad suite, located in another partition of the disk) to see what's
going on.
The System Information detects everything except the Hard Drive (it
reports "Not Available" for the fields "Hard disk free space" and "Hard
disk capacity"). I also can't see the harddisk in the option to backup
the files to a pen (the pen is recognized, though).
Just to be sure, I run PC Doctor and my hard disk passes all tests.

What's going on? How can I fix this? Help.

My harddisk is: *hitachi hts722020k9sa00 fde ata device*


--
newbie

On Wed, 20 May 2009 08:45:23 -0500, newbie wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Suddenly, my computer freezed (just like it has been doing for some time
> now).
> When I restarted it, the computer asked for the Vista DVD, so that it
> could repair some files (I couldn't even boot into Safe Mode). I put the
> DVD inside the drive, and choose the "Repair your computer" option, but
> it reports that no Vista installation is found...
>
> I then boot into the Rescue and Recovery environment (that is a Thinkpad
> suite, located in another partition of the disk) to see what's going on.
> The System Information detects everything except the Hard Drive (it
> reports "Not Available" for the fields "Hard disk free space" and "Hard
> disk capacity"). I also can't see the harddisk in the option to backup
> the files to a pen (the pen is recognized, though). Just to be sure, I
> run PC Doctor and my hard disk passes all tests.
>
> What's going on? How can I fix this? Help.
>
> My harddisk is: *hitachi hts722020k9sa00 fde ata device*

You might consider booting a Linux Live CD to back up your data files to a
USB drive before you do much fiddling.

> You might consider booting a Linux Live CD to back up your data files to a
> USB drive before you do much fiddling.

heh .. linux as the answer .. heh

the power of the pretend is a marvelous thing to watch at work


Rich

So, I tried using the Vista Retail DVD one more time, just to be sure.

I chose the "Repair your computer" option and selected "Next", even
though, no hard drive appeared in the list. Luckily, it worked, anyway.
Weird.

All is well, now.


--
newbie