Hey Everyone,
Thank you so much in advance for the help, I sincerely appreciate it. I am running Windows Vista Home Premium. I turned my computer off last night and when I turned it on just now, it said "windows failed to start" and I had a blank screen (with what seemed to be a burnt-out pixel...but it wasn't as it went away after I turned the computer off).
I restarted and did a start up repair with the vista cd and it got me to the login screen. I then logged in but afterward, the screen was black with the cursor (that I could move around). I then tried to enter task manager which was successful...and if I tried "new task" and entered "firefox" it ran, which is what I am doing now. However, if I try "explorer," I see the bar pop up at the bottom for a split second...and then it closes and goes away. Typing things like "c:" results in "class not registered." Safe mode is the same thing, no desktop icons whatsoever. I tried a system restore with the startup CD as well and got a "class not registered" error after logging in again.
I would hate to have to reformat because I have some files on here I want and it's clear that they are there somewhere and that the system still works at its core, or else I would not be able to type to you all. Anyone have any ideas? I am very grateful for your time.
Not sure if you got it working or not, however did you receive any error message with this other than Windows failed to start? I found a suggestion from Technet about a recent hardware or software change that could of lead to this error. Not sure if this will apply in your situation, but here's the link and the recovery disk will be necessary to attempt this fix.
