i dont know how it happened but as soon as i restarted my pc all i see is this nasty bootup error...

error attempting to read boot config data

file: \boot\bcd
status: 0x000000F



what does all this mean? what could i have done before restarting my pc to make this error come up instead of booting up normally?

i didnt have a windows installation disk that it asked me to put into the drive and it wouldnt let me do anything like go to system restore or do a startup repair. so i ended up having to reinstall the entire system with recovery disks instead of being able to fix the bootup mess from the start.

what couldve caused this error and is there a free download available somewhere that could help solve this problem, such as a windows boot or startup disk to work with vista 86x.

thanks