Hi, sorry for the delayed response. Things have been hectic at work the past couple days, but I wanted to give the ending to the story. The fixlist here didn't work for me, so I went ahead and just bought a SATA->USB adapter and pulled the data with my laptop. Then I tried doing a clean install of Windows 7, since I have the disc, but it would only install with the EFI file system, meaning my system image backup of her computer could not be extracted since it was made with the BIOS system, and my attempts to force a BIOS type installation failed miserably. We have identical laptops since we bought the same model at the same time, so the only way to get all the correct drivers onto her laptop after that was to use the software that came with my SATA adapter. With all hope lost, I cloned my entire HD onto my wife's HD, then replaced all "my" data with hers. It's up and running now, with the only traces of the fix being (1) the Windows/User folder is called "Tom" instead of "Miranda" and (2) the Windows product key is the one for my laptop and it's not worth the trouble to correct it. TL;DR Her laptop was so ####ed that I cloned my own HD to save it. Again, sorry for the delayed response to your kind support. Thank you for your patience. I wish you all the best.