So I removed the old WD entirely and then Vista's boot loader failed, with "0xc000000e Missing or corrupt \windows\system32\winload.exe".<BR><BR>What else do I need to do to get Vista booting off ...

Fix Winload.efi file missing or not found with error codes 0xc00000e, 0xc0000001 or 0xc0000225 on Windows during boot or startup.

Winload.exe or Windows Boot Loader is started by the BOOTMGR boot manager process and is used by the Windows OS to load essential device drivers, etc.

Strange thing this, the computer has been working happy for 11 months, the last update performed was some silverlight or some other thing that kept coming up.BTW, I tried a search, wasn't fruitful ...