Vista constantly reboots into Startup Repair - boot options not av

[mcmcom]

hi all,
i have an HP Compaq 8710p laptop that is about 10 months old. For no
apparent reason yesterday it just froze up and when i re-started it it took
me directly into Startup Repair. Since then all it will do is boot up into
startup repair and fix the same issue, then re-start itself and go back into
startup repair, fixing the same issue over and over with no change.

For some reason i am unable to press F8 to bring up boot options screen
during load. And this is easily the most annoying part about the whole
situation. there is absolutely NO WAY to interrupt the boot options and get
a "selectable" list of boot options, for some reason it ONLY goes to Startup
repair.

Startup Repair never lasts too long at all only about 20 seconds each time.
The diagnostic code in the details is as follows: (this is the only problem
it detects)

Root cause found:
Boot Manager failed to find OS loader.
Repair action : File Repair
Result : Completed Successfully. Error code 0x0
Time taken = 13400 ms

So it states that it has fixed it but every time i restart it i get the same
issue. I cant boot from cd because of course HP in its infinite wisdom
decided to make this a "diskless" restore. Using their own branded software
to restore your computer - of course there are no restore points (as i
couldn't make them some software issue) so now im forced to restore this back
to factory settings (which i really dont want to do)

If anyone has any idea or had a similar problem like this please offer any
suggestions. FYI i am a seasoned MS Programmer with about 2 decades of
experience and in my lifetime i have never had such a hard time trying to fix
a computer. I mean comon, give me a command prompt or something. I find it
ridicolous that i cannot interrupt startup at any time!

tia,
mcm

[John Barnes]

Shift key and F10 may get you to a command prompt.

[mcmcom]

no dice on the Shift F10.
Spoke with HP Support. They say its a HD issue and i have to send it in for
servicing. Of course i have critical information regarding my work on this
hd and now have no way to recover it. I also got a vista CD from a friend
and attempted to do the Repair option from it. VIsta install was undetected
and i have no way to load drivers for my hard drive. :( So basically im
screwed because HP decided to make very poorly written backup and recovery
software.

Heres how it works.
1. You can use their recovery software as long as you dont encrypt you
drive.
2. Once you encrypt your drive you have to set a new restore point.
3. You are unable to set a restore point (unknown error) once the drive is
encrypted.
4. You try to recover your computer to factory defaults and are unable to
perform a restore until you disable drive encryption.
5. You cannot disable drive encryption until you can boot into your OS.
6. You cannot boot into your OS if you cannot get the boot options to ever
display!

[John Barnes]

Can you get into your BIOS to run from the DVD? You can try this program.
Some have had to burn to a DVD, others can get it to run from a CD.
http://neosmart.net/downloads/guides...overy_Disc.iso
You can go to the neosmart site for instructions.

[mcmcom]

Thanks for the help. I booted off the recovery disk. I went to repair. I
could not see my vista install on the list of installed o.a so I thought
maybe its because my drive is sata so I put the drivers on a USB drive and
attempted to install them they seemed to install but system repair still
cannot see my vista or my c drive. In command prompt i tried to chkdsk on c
but it said the drive is raw and this could not run on it. I then tried to
just go into c but it said it was not formatted.

So that's where I'm at now not much further sadly

[John Barnes]

Any chance that the diskpart /? command offers something that will
help with your drive (with drivers if needed)

[mcmcom]

thanks i will try that in a bit. right now i am backing up all my work and
files onto an external drive just in case i throw the computer off my
balcony. I spoke with hp support at length today, they seem to think its a
problem with my hard drive. It may well be but i am suspicious of this
because i CAN get into hps Recovery system (as i stated earlier) from the
recovery system i can backup my files to a drive. I cannot do the restore
because of the drive encryption but i can backup my files.

i will let you know the results of test as soon as i am done backing up
these files.
thanks again for the help,
mcm

[mcmcom]

if i type diskpart /? i get a mini help file that tells me /s can be used for
a script and /? is for the help screen. Any specific commands i should try
on this?

[John Barnes]

No. Looks like the crippled version. Looks pretty much like you have tried
everything except the HP solution.

[mcmcom]

yes the more i attempt to use hp's backup tools the more i realize the issue
is with the disk because i can only make very small backups or else it
crashes :( Also it thinks the damn disk is RAW.

thanks anyways im sending it off for repairs today.