vista repair install

Hello,

I've got a notebook that cannot load vista (home premium). The start up repairs failed. Originally it couldn't find the osloader which research turned up to be winload.exe. I copied a new version of that file from the recovery drive and the system still wouldn't boot up. The startup check found the registry was corrupt and is unable to repair.

My research found repair installs like windows xp don't exist in vista, some MVP's suggested doing an in-place upgrade. The steps were as follows.
Boot from dvd, don't enter a product key, select vista version, select upgrade, after install finishes then enter key and activate. The problem is that the upgrade option is disabled and can only be done when started in windows which won't boot. Custom looks like it only installs a fresh copy.

I've used a regular vista dvd and one with sp1 with same results. From looking at the windows update log files, it doesn't look like sp1 was ever installed. Also did a chkdsk /f /r without any luck. Sfc isn't able to run even booted off the dvd. I get Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.