To access the utility within the Windows Recovery Environment you need to insert your Vista DVD into the DVD drive on your computer and turn your computer on. Your computer will start and you should see the BIOS listing the hardware on your computer and other information. When that information has been cleared, your computer will see that a bootable DVD is inserted and present a prompt similar to Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Boot the computer from the CD or DVD
As you want to boot the computer from the Windows Vista DVD, you need to press a key, any key will do, on your keyboard when you see this prompt. It is possible that the DVD that came with your computer does not allow you to boot off of it. If this is the case, then your computer manufacturer most likely installed the Windows Recovery Environment directly to a small partition on your hard drive. To access this partition, you would slowly tap the F8 key on your keyboard after the BIOS information clears from your screen until you see the Windows startup menu. From this menu use your arrow keys to select the option for the Windows Recovery Environment and press the enter key on your keyboard. You should now see a black screen with a white status bar at the bottom stating Windows is loading files... After a while, the status bar will turn completely white and you will see a screen stating that Windows is loading. The Windows Setup environment will continue to load and when finished you will be presented with a screen similar to Figure 2 that prompts you for information about your location and language
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Figure 2. Configure language and location options in Vista Setup
At this screen you should configure the Language to install, Time and currency format, and Keyboard or input method options so that they are set correctly. When done, press the Next button. You will now be at the main Windows Vista setup screen where you would normally install Vista on to a computer.
Figure 3. Windows Vista Setup options
As we want to repair the computer, you should click on the Repair your computer option. This will bring you to a new screen where the repair process will look for all Windows Vista installations on your computer. When done you will be presented with the System Recovery Options dialog box as shown in Figure 4 below.
Figure 4. System Recovery Options
Select the Vista installation you would like to repair and if there are drivers you need to load in order for Vista to access any of your drives or other components, then you should click on the Load Drivers button to load them. When ready, press the Next button to continue. If the repair process does not detect any problems starting Vista, it will display a list of available recovery tools. If it does detect a problem it will attempt to perform a Startup Repair to automatically fix these problems. If you would like to allow this process to continue, then you can read more about it here. Otherwise click on the Cancel button and select the View advanced options for system recovery and support option to see the list of recovery tools.
Figure 5. System Recovery Options