Massive Vista Service Pack 2 Update Problem

Hi Guys

Having a horrible problem with my Sony Vaio PCG-6L1L laptop right now.

***---IMPORTANT: I am using a different computer to write this, as i can't even get windows to correctly boot on the Vaio, please do not tell me something I need to download/delete/disable that requires running windows because at the moment it won't even boot. ---***

Quick backstory: I clean reformatted my Vaio about a week ago to give it a nice fresh start and get rid of a few years worth of clutter that had accumulated from typical use.
Over the past week or so I've been getting up to date with windows update installing several a day.
Today before work I chose the "restart and install updates" option when i turned off my computer, the updates being Vista Service Pack 2 among others. While updating the machine crashed and windows shut itself down, however the computer stayed on just with a black screen displaying nothing since windows wasnt running.
I turned it off and then back on and when I did it booted to a screen that says "Installing Service Pack 1/3 - 0%"
The update progressed eventually going to "Installing Service Pack 3/3 - 100%" and then sat for a few seconds doing nothing. Maybe 20 seconds later windows shutdown and automatically restarted itself getting back to the same point before shutting down again. I wasn't sure if this was part of the update or what so I left for work.

When I got back from work several hours later it was still doing the same thing! At this point seeing it was obviously an error i cold killed it and tried a restart.
Upon restart it just did the same thing..
Then i tried it in safe mode, same thing..
Then i tried the debugger thing on the boot menu, i get the same thing..

I've tried all Windows options on the boot menu and they all end up resulting in the same "Installing Service Pack 1/3 - 0%" screen eventually leading to a crash and restart, crash and restart infinite loop.

I'm almost positive whats doing it as well(I use ESET smart security which blocks anything that tries to make changes to your machine, probably is blocking the update), but i have no way of turning it off/disabling it because I can't even boot Windows!!

Whats even worse is I can't even reformat from the disk because when I try and use the activation key it tells me I have to enter it in from my current version of windows which I can't because I can't get it to boot.

I'm honestly at loss here, the laptop is practically worthless in its current state. I tried to get some help on Microsoft tech support forums, and they pointed me to a patch for ESET that fixed a problem with it blocking updates, but wow how can I download an apply a patch if I can't even get the computer on!

PLEASE! I need your help

 

Funny thing, as we are sure that update will never be done, so there's few choices what we have.

You could try this:

- Use your Windows Vista DVD and run a repair system option that Microsoft have, maybe you have luck with that.

- Use the same DVD to rollback to a restore point

- Install windows again over the windows already installed without format the HDD.

Aren't the best solutions but you can start to think about that.

Cheers.

 

Good suggestions all around there. Thanks in progress of being given!

One thing too I would like to add is that at this point you have to ask yourself do you really want to install Windows Vista again? Frankly, I would harvest my files off the machine using a USB hard drive adapter, and then buy a copy of Win 7 and install it. that is if the fundage is available.

You'll be happier on Windows 7 and it's totally worth the investment.



Can you boot however to Safe Mode with Command prompt?

 

Thanks guys for all the help, its tons more than I got from microsoft support forums. Most people over there wanted to tell me that i needed to download a patch or that I had hijackware(cmon im dealing with a week old clean copy of vista..).

The windows 7 thing seems like my most viable option at the moment, however there are a few ways id like to try its just that i don't know how.

The first is this:

when i use my vista disk, i can open a command prompt window
is there a way i can disable the eset from this, if so how?

secondly

is there a way from the boot menu to access the registry of programs that load on startup and remove eset or just somehow delete it completely?

Although this problem is not resolved, I greatly appriciate the help/ideas I have gotten. Keep them coming please :cool