kwallis

Windows Vista won't boot up on sony vaio (VGN-N38E/W) laptop. Tried to access the internet yesterday and the laptop froze. I eventually removed the battery to crash out, but after restarting, the computer went to the startup repair mode. I ran the diagnose and repair option and it showed a pshed.dll error. I tried all the other options in the startup repair mode, also managed to restore to an earlier date, these processes seemed to have run and worked but have not resolved the issue - still wont start up. It now says "windows cannot repair this computer automatically" and cant find the error at all. I'm concerned this may be the hardrive - the laptop has been getting very hot in the last week (4 years old) and makes unusual ticking noises when I start the machine. I also dont have a recovery disc. Need to urgently access files not backed up in the last few days. Please help! Thanks KW