Follow my wiki Windows Reinstallation Guide (A Clean Install of Windows Vista) and load the latest Intel SATA Driver during the setup as instructed: [URL]
Having spent literally hours and hours trying to get the Latitude laptop to run Vista again and only have the problem get progressively more intractable I am getting desperate !  product service key    <ADMIN NOTE: Service tag removed per privacy policy>   The issue started with the laptop refusing to shutdown.  After removing the battery to pass through airport security it started up, and then froze after a couple of minutes operation (one or two key clicks).  It booted ok in safe mode.  Tried reinstalling the Norton antivirus.  No change. Tried system repair without success.  Tried finding previous restore points - none found.  Tried updating the OS. Got partway through and hung.  Restarted and repeated.  Did a few updates and hung.  Restarted and this time it wouldn't even boot in safe mode.    Did a system check and got an error 0142.  Put in original Dell Vista disk.  Tried the repair option and it doesn't find the operating system.  Just get an hour glass (for hours).  Tried turning off and on again, and have had a series of different windows (including one horrible looking error message about shutting down the system to avoid serious damage).  Have at one point got a command window open and had the X: boot disk.  Ran a chkdsk on that which came up with no errors except unable to write a journal?   We had an option to repair the operating system at one point from the DVD (but it didn't seem to know what operating system) but that just hung searching for a solution (left it at least 2 hours).  Can't now give you the exact messages as the computer is back in the hour glass mode failing to start up the OS from DVD (and failing to do anything else either).    What do we do now ?    I have difficulty believing that this is just a simple hardware (disk) issue as it seems linked to the restart that was done (after not being turned off for some months) and to the windows update.   thanks very much for any replies !
No Boot, no safe mode, reinstall disk doesn't find OS