Hello all, this is my first post here and I have an odd problem:

About 4 days ago I installed the updates for Windows Vista Ultimate (32 bit) and shut down my machine no problems. Later when I went back to my machine I powered it, went through POST and got the message "Computer cannot locate OS-- Put in disk (etc)" I cold booted, restarted the system and it worked fine. Now after about 12 boots of working normally, friday morning (2/15) I started my machine and got the same error. I have been told that I will have to re-install Windows...but I really want to avoid this.

Specs:
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimae 32 bit
Motherboard: EVGA nForce 680i SLI, socket 775, pci-e, ddr2
Vid: 768MB EVGA GeForce 8800GTX
Processor: AMD
HD: 750 GB Hitachi 7200rpm 16MB Cache SATA 300 w/ncq

Also: Should I wait for SP1 to come out...could that fix the problem?

Thank You

Did you install any Windows Updates or other software just before this started happening? Microsoft just had a patch Tuesday and some updates can cause problems.

Yes, I installed the Windows updates that came out this past tuesday. Everything ran normal until the updates.

If you can get back in, try uninstalling the updates - there's been several reported problems with them across the web.

If you can't get back in, put your Vista Ultimate DVD in the DVD drive and boot from it to launch Startup Repair. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html