Downgrading with a bad hard drive

[KidChocobo]

Currently, I have Windows 7. I'm trying to downgrade to Vista and re-upgrade to 7. My laptop won't even boot up at all because I apparently have a bad hard drive. I have both DVDs to boot it up but I can't even get past the starting windows screen. I also have the original Drivers and Utilities DVD for my laptop that came with it. I'm not sure if I should attempt to boot the Drivers DVD to repair the damaged hard drive or just try to downgrade and then re-upgrade?

Sorry for the confusion I really don't know what to do right now!

 

[KidChocobo]

Its a Dell Inspiron 1545 that originally had Vista as the default OS. I upgraded to 7 and it was operating fine until I had a recent update about two weeks ago. While my comp was updating, it froze in the middle of installation and I had to hard reset it. Once I booted it up again, I was sent to Startup Repair and haven't been able to boot the computer up since then.

I tried sticking in the Windows 7 installation disc and selecting the repair path but no further prompts will load after I make the repair selection. It seems as if my hard drive is unresponsive or not able to read anything anymore. If my hard drive is dead, does that mean my laptop is kaput? I've had it for three years already and never had an issue with Windows Updates!

 

[bigmck]

Currently, I have Windows 7. I'm trying to downgrade to Vista and re-upgrade to 7

You don't need to do this. When you got Windows 7, did you buy get a DVD? If so, just boot your PC with the DVD in the drive and you can reinstall Windows 7 without having to mess with Vista. This is a tutorial that will guide you through the installation. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html Let us know how things go. Just remember to have backups of your files, because everything will be erased when you do the install.