Problem booting boot camp or any startup disk

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I am running Snow Leopard on a 2.4GHz MacBook Pro, late 08 - early 09 model. I have been using boot camp to run Vista for the past year with no problem. This morning, I tried to start up Vista and it wasn't working. I got the option key screen to choose between OSX and Vista, but after choosing vista, the cursor blinks once and I get a black screen. The computer is quiet and nothing seems to be running.

At first I thought it was a boot camp problem. So I went into OSX, de-partitioned the drive, and repartitioned it. I then stuck the Vista install disk in, and clicked through the boot camp assistant to reinstall. The computer restarted to begin the reinstall process, but instead of starting the install disk, it did the same thing - a single blip of cursor, and then a black screen.

I'm not technically savvy, but that seems like it's not a Windows problem, but a firmware or EFI problem. The computer will run OSX, but it won't run boot camp and it won't start from a CD-ROM. The only other steps I've taken are to run Software Update and the Disk Utility from Safari. Neither helped. I'm out of warranty and would love to be able to fix it without spending tons of money. Any help is appreciated.
 
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Updates

A few updates:

I tried resetting the PRAM and SMC, neither of which worked.

I ran the EFI update utility, which says the EFI is up to date.

I have also since tried starting up from the Snow Leopard disk, which DOES work, so, to more precisely try to pinpoint the problem, I can boot both Snow Leopard and the Snow Leopard Startup Disk, but I cannot boot Windows Vista or the Windows Vista Startup Disk.

The only thing I installed recently was Civilization V for Windows, about a week ago. I can't remember if I had switched to OSX and back since the install without having a problem, or if I just left it on Vista straight through the last week.
 

chscag

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2017 27" iMac, 10.5" iPad Pro, iPhone 8, iPhone 11, iPhone 12 Mini, Numerous iPods, Monterey
Since you're able to boot from the Snow Leopard DVD, try this: Boot to Snow Leopard normally from your hard drive and go back into the Boot Camp assistant. Delete the Vista partition. In other words restore everything back to OS X. After that's completed, reboot the machine from your Snow Leopard DVD and run Disk Utility. Do a verify and repair for the entire hard drive. Let's see what it says.
 

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