No, Murph. Everything is helpful at this point! Thank you for responding!
I'm pretty much at wits end. At this point, I'd LOVE to have to restore the system to factory and try that back up to recover all the rest of the files since the computer was new.
At the moment, I can't even get to the option of "restore" from the boot up (F11 I think?) because every time I boot it up, and choose ANY of the options (Diagnostics, Restore, etc) it goes to the screen "Windows was not shut down properly" with the options for starting Windows normally or using one of the safe modes. In other words, I'm not even able to GET to the screen to restore the system.
I thought that if I could maybe attempt to shut Windows down normally, I can get back to options at bootup. So, I just tried hitting the Windows key on the KB, than the right arrow, then enter. If Windows is running back there somewhere, that SHOULD shut the system down normally. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working.
To Ken's points earlier (Thank You also Ken!) it's a Vista 32 system, and didn't come with a Windows disc....just the recovery partition. I don't seem to have a series of Recovery / Rescue discs anywhere, though I'm surprised because I'm usually good about those things (though admittedly disorganized of late).
