Question : Hard drive not bootable

A customer brought a desktop computer to me that has been hit by lightning.  I run a test on the hard drive, memory and the DVD drive and the test came out good, but the motherboard will not go though post, so I will need to replace the motherboard.  But the real issue is that even though the hard drive checks out good, the boot up files have been corrupted and therefore windows vista will not start.  The customer has a program installed that if I wipe the hard drive clean and do a clean install, he will have to pay out another $400 to have that program re-installed.
      So the question is, how can I do a repair on this OS without wiping the hard drive?  I have already tried to run the repair windows option, which it tried to restore the os to an earlier version, but it claimed it couldn't do that.  I then put in the windows vista disk and selected repair from that, but it claimed that that version windows was the wrong version.  I can't understand that since this disk can install all the versions of vista that there is.  So I need to know if it is possible to do a repair on this hard disk without loosing that program.  

Answer : Hard drive not bootable

ESXi, in my opinion, is most certainly your best bet. You have much more flexibility for growth, if it is ever needed, plus it's a baremetal hypervisor (no OS overhead). ESXi is your best bet "mystical".

Regards,
~coolsport00