[jyl]

I arrived in Manhattan this afternoon for a 4 day conference, got to the hotel, and my work laptop won't boot. The Windows Boot Manager tells me my winload.exe file is missing or corrupt. I also got a message saying the registry is missing or corrupt. I've run the HPQ test (hit ESC during bootup) and they claim my system is fine. Arrrgh.

The Bootup Manager invites me to insert a system disc and repair, but naturally I don't have one.

I tried booting to safe mode or last known good configuration but get a message that I need a password for BitLocker, whatever that is. Some sort of disk encryption I guess.

I have a call into IT support who is trying to track down someone who can do something. They don't sound hopeful of fixing this remotely. Maybe they can overnight me a new laptop - I dunno - that would solve my problem. I can struggle through the conferemce using just my iPhone and taking notes on (!) paper (!) but I have to do a dog and pony show on a client conference call on Thursday, and I need access to my network files and applications to prepare for that. Not good.

Any ideas? Can I hunt down a Vista disk at this hour in Manhattan?