If you got a black screen that says: WINDOWS ERROR RECOVERY , then you are in the right place.

I have had this problem and have been one of the lucky few to get round it.
Although in my case, I do not know the cause, if you have encountered the same problem, you will need to follow the same steps like I did to get around it successfully.

I got this issue early in the morning after booting my system, the system started up but then, after that i got this 'black screen of death', I then went on to many forums to find out the best options for solving this, I knew there was a definite way to fix the problem with a full destructive recovery with the recovery partition you get with vista, however i didn't want to lose all my data.

So I switched OFF my computer restarted it.

I tapped F9 continuously to open Boot Menu.

When the menu came up, I tapped F8 and got several menu options.

The top option should be 'repair my computer', Click on it.

You should now have a very basic log in window which has your Username, (if you have no password just press enter, but if you do type it in and press enter).

Now you should have several options of recovering or repairing your PC.

The most successful so far is a normal windows restore which takes the computer back a few days, I would recommend a week if available.

Once completed, Click Restart to start up your computer. This should get rid of the 'black screen of death'.

Once logged on run command prompt with administrative properties then type in sfc /scannow

This will hoefully find anything else which is corrupt. I have found the main reason for this is actually vista's own way of performing better... on most people with this problem I spoke to had an option enabled on the hard drive by default : 'Enable write caching on the disk' : 'this setting improves disk performance, but a power outage or equipment failure might result in data loss or curruption' this option can be found by going into device manager - find your primary hard drive, right click, properties, policies. this is the closest ive found to a cause of this 'black screen of death'

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-176196-black-screen-vista-boot-up-error

Criteria for Acquiring Software Packages

Choosing software for a certain department or company is not just a matter of checking the prices. The real cost of a product includes the price of the software and the cost of implementing it as well. As I browse the net, I found this presentation by an international, award-winning author John Hedtke that shows how to identify the features you need, the features you want, and the features you don’t care about. The presentation also discussed ways to determine other important selection criteria, such as the hardware and operating system requirements, the product’s interoperability with other departments, new and intermediate user training requirements, and the need for continuing product support. You’ll see how to create a list of selection criteria that accurately reflects your needs and priorities, evaluate the products that may fulfill your criteria, and make a selection. The presentation concluded with tips on evaluating the product’s appropriateness after you’ve been using it for a month or two.
Criteria for acquiring Software Packages:

1. Hardware and Operating System Requirements

2. Product's Interoperability with other Departments

3. New and Intermediate User Training Requirements

4. Need for Continuing Product Support

5. Price of the Software and the Cost of Implementing the Software

Hardware and Operating System. Acquiring software package needs examining performance. When you examine performance, a number of factors influence how much capacity a given hardware configuration will need in order to support a given application. The hardware capacity required to support your application depends on the specifics of the application and configuration. You should consider how each factor applies to your configuration and application. Choosing an Operating System considers the following factors; Stability and Robustness, Memory Management, Memory Leaks, Sharing Memory, Cost and Support, Discontinued Products and Operating System Releases. Selecting right hardware leads to great software performance, choosing hardware considers; I/O Performance, Memory, CPU and Bottlenecks (Solving Hardware Requirement Conflicts).

Product's Interoperability. Product's Interoperability with other Departments criteria defines the term Inter-operate, the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together. Interoperability is used to describe the capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of exchange formats, to read and write the same file formats, and to use the same protocols. (The ability to execute the same binary code on different processor platforms is 'not' contemplated by the definition of interoperability.) The lack of interoperability can be a consequence of a lack of attention to standardization during the design of a program. Indeed, interoperability is not taken for granted in the non-standards-based portion of the computing world.

User Training. According to Jonathan Wu, a columnist in Information Management Online said that, Each software company that develops Business Intelligence (BI) applications offers training courses on their products. The goal of this standard BI training is to demonstrate the features and functionality of the application to the customers through lecture and lab exercises. Most companies that purchase a BI application will have users attend the standard training that is provided by the BI company because it is readily available and requires very little preparation or planning.

Product Support. Need for Continuing Product Support Offers a wide range of product and service solutions. This criteria will provide the end to end support you need to control costs and maximize value for your product returns. From returns management through fulfillment, channel remarketing or recycling, this criteria will support your specific product returns needs often at a substantial savings over other options.

Cost. Software licensing cost is among several major cost factors that must be considered when acquiring software packages. The real cost of a product includes the price of the software and the cost implementing it as well. The real cost of a product includes the price of the software and the cost of implementing it as well. Contributing to the overall cost of implementation are costs associated with; Computer hardware, Database platform, New System Maintenance, Old System Maintenance, Data Conversion services, Project management services, Technical training and User Training.