HP Laptop won't boot

Greetings,
HP G60 running Windows Vista - No Vista Disc

A couple days ago my wife's laptop went BSOD out of the blue, and now boots to Windows Error Recovery prompt. Regardless of what option you choose here it goes to the System Recovery Options screen. There is nothing listed in the box under Operating System. This laptop came from Best Buy many years ago with Windows Vista installed on it and we were not given a disc, so I cant use it to "load drivers". If you select next it takes you to a list of recovery tools. I attempted to run "Startup Repair" which started running and says it could take an hour. So I let it run for almost 24, and it appeared to just be stuck there, so I aborted.

I did some googling, then checked to make sure the HDD was properly seated. It was. Then I went to the BIOS and ran some tests. Says memory etc is good. The HDD test is failing with the following results:

Hard Disk Self Test 0%
#10008 - Replace Hard Disk1 rent test item
Smart Hard Disk passed.

After some more googling I went to the command prompt and ran DISKPART:
Disk 0 - Online - Size/298GB - Free/1024KB
Disk 1 - No Media - 0 - 0

Select Disk 0
Disk 0 is now the selected disk
List Partition

Partition 1 - Primary - Size/287GB - Offset/32KB
Volume 1 - Ltr/F - Label/(blank) - Fs/RAW - Type/Partition - Size/287GB - Status/healthy

Partition 2 - Primary - Size/11GB - Offset/287GB
Volume 2 - Ltr/D - Label/RECOVERY - Fs/NTFS - Type/Partition - Size/11GB - Status/healthy

Tried to run chkdsk from command prompt and no dice:
X:\windows\system32>chkdsk /F c:
Cannot open volume for direct access

I have downloaded and burned working discs of Ultimate Boot CD and Windows Vista AIK, but I don't know how to utilize them yet to isolate/repair the problem. If the hard drive is shot, the first order of business would be to retrieve all of the wifes media and files and move them to an external HDD I have. I can then replace the HDD or just format/fresh windows install on the laptop, whichever is cheaper. Any help you can provide would be appreciated.

Regards,
jmogwai7

 

I would get a copy of cloning software from Acronis, or Easeus and clone the drive while you still can. There is a good chance the clone will boot on the machine in question.

If it does not, you can use the Recovery Options to do a non-destructive recovery of the operating system.

As far as hooking the drive up to another PC and recovering the data, you can attach it to a desktop motherboard with a SATA cable and attach a power plug to the drive and it should be treated as a secondary "slave" drive. If you do not have a desktop or an extra SATA cable, this is one of my favorite tools:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...61002&ef_id=UwWKdwAAABDoUiBO:20140713235734:s

Or if you'd like to go the route of an external enclosure:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...gclid=COarwJS_w78CFeXm7Aod6ngAVQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Money is kind of tight, so it would be nice to not have to purchase new hardware. Is there a way for me to rule out the possibility that this could be a software issue that could be repaired (malware, AVS, corrupt OS) before I just replace the drive?

 

BTW that adapter is pretty awesome.

 

You can try Kaspersky Rescue Disk. It's bootable, and will scan your Windows OS for malware. Due to age, I was going with the assessment. But, you may be right.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/kaspersky_rescue_disk.html