Unable to perform start up repair and boot

Hi,

Need your help. Here's the history so far. Need you advice to proceed.

I have a dell 1525 running vista home basic 32bit. I started my machine after about 4-6 months and hence obviously the windows updates, antivirus updates started automatically. At one point it asked me to restart and when i did, I was greeted with "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

I tried,
1. Safe Mode
2. Last known good configuration
3. Start Windows normally

But nothing worked. I looked up google for answers. Then based on one posting selected "Disable auto restart on failure" so that I could see the blue screen details. Here they are : STOP : 0x00000024 ( 0x873C59E8 , 0xC0000102 , 0x00000000 ).

I looked up google again, based on recommendations, I used the Windows DVD that I got with my Dell and tried the start-up repair. In the first try, it did not even show me the C:\, but after scanning for more than 4 hrs, it asked me to restart machine. Offcourse it did not help me boot, but now at least it showed me the C:\ from the windows disk. Here what the startup repair log says:
-----------------------------------
Root cause found
A patch is preventing system from starting
Repair action: System files integrity check & Repair
Result: Failed. error code = 0xa
Time taken = 7207 ms
----------------------------------

I booted system again with Windows disk and at the place where it gives an option to load drivers, put that Dell drivers disk. When asked to browse, the machine still tried to navigate the windows disk and I could see my folders and files. So at least those are present. It's little relief. Although I am still not able to boot completely.

Again looked up google and found some posting on Vista Forums, so based on that, i went to command prompt and got the following

------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
X:\Sources>DISKPART

Microsoft DiskPart Version 6.0.6001
Copyright <C> 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MINWINPC

DISKPART> LIS VOL
VOLUME ### | LTR | LABEL _____| Fs | TYPE _____| SIZE | STATUS | INFO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOLUME 0 ___| D | VISTA_SP1_H | UDF | DVD-ROM | 2940MB | Heathly |
VOLUME 1 ___| C | OS| NTFS | Partition | 298GB | Heathly |
VOLUME 2 ___|__ |_____ _______| FAT |Partition | 39MB | Heathly | Hidden

DISKPART> SEL DISK 0
Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> DETAIL DISK

Disk ID:00000080
Type: ATA
Bus: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
Read-Only: No
Boot Disk: No
Pagefile Disk: No
Hibernation File Disk: No
Crashdump Disk: No

VOLUME ### | LTR | LABEL | Fs | TYPE | SIZE | STATUS | INFO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOLUME 1 ___| C | _OS__| NTFS | Partition | 298GB | Heathly |
VOLUME 2 ___|__ |_____ _______| FAT |Partition | 39MB | Heathly | Hidden

Welcome
It is difficult to go by one bug code (24). It usually takes several, giving several codes to get a clear picture. In your case 24 means:
Usual causes: Disk corruption, insufficient physical memory, Device driver, Indexing, Resident antivirus, backup, defrag programs, Disk/Drive failing/failure
The most common is hard drive, which needs to be tested.

Test Hard Drive www.carrona.org/hddiag.html or this test www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

It can also be memory related.

Other causes given are not as common but possibilites.