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I have an Advent Roma laptop that won't boot up. It powers on but Windows does not start. I have tried to repair and to reinstall Vista but the disk just won't load. Nothing loads.

I decided to try Test Disk but it doesn't seem to come up with any errors or missing partitions.

After starting Test Disk, choosing the HDD and analysing, I get this information;

Disk /dev/sda - 250GB / 232GiB - CHS 30402 255 63

Partition Start End Size in sectors

* HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 1211 52 57 19456000 [Recovery]
P HPFS - NTFS 1211 52 58 1402 109 51 3072000 [System]
P HPFS - NTFS 1402 109 52 30401 42 41 465864704 [Vista]

I was hoping somebody would be able to tell why the OS isn't starting by looking at this information, because I have no idea...

Thanks

Looks like that you're trying to boot from the wrong partition?
Your current partition tbale looks like the following picture;

* HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 1211 52 57 19456000 [Recovery]
P HPFS - NTFS 1211 52 58 1402 109 51 3072000 [System]
P HPFS - NTFS 1402 109 52 30401 42 41 465864704 [Vista]

Your first partition is only a recovery partition where you probably don't boot from.
At the left side you can see a * (Star) it means bootable.
Check that partition and use the left or right arrao key on your keyboard to set it to P for primary only.
Looks like;
P HPFS - NTFS 0 32 33 1211 52 57 19456000 [Recovery]
Check your second partition system, it's your boot partition and set it to star for primary active;
* HPFS - NTFS 1211 52 58 1402 109 51 3072000 [System]
Leave your Vista-partition easily as it is.
Press enter.
Check Write and press enter and y to confirm.
Close TestDisk using quit and restart your PC that changes take effect.

Please let me know.

Fiona