In Vista, there is a whole NEW boot menu, and I think that you should all be aware of it.
There is now a System Repair tool (I urge you all to check it out on a test computer the NEXT time you go to your friendly office store) that can be accessed via the Boot Menu (F8 key on startup)

It has a repair tool that GOES through and checks various issues that may be a result to system failure.
image: http://supcontent.gateway.com/support.gateway.com/s/software/microsof/Vista/graphics/lastknown/AdvancedBootOptions.gif

The menu option is titled "Repair your Computer"
A screenshot of it can be seen here:
http://www.windowsvistamagazine.com/US/28190303527917688/faq_repair.png

This tool works excellently for fixing STOP issues, driver related problems, disk errors, and other things that may prevent the computer from starting...

I think it will work fine as a first diagnostic tool

Just thought you might like to know

-ZylstraNice. Thank you.LOL when I saw the title I was expecting this to be some major glitch/screw up in Vista Wow!! Vista is really smart.Sorry if I slacked off on any information, I was posting in a hurry...
FEEL free to ask any questions, comment, etc... I dont know the specifics of how it works, I did use it once on a STOP error, it got the computer back up and running in about a half hour (it can take a while... probably not best to do this off battery)