Re: Suggestions, plz, to get boot-drive up and running again?!?

Hi Brian,
Thank you very much. I think I was able to follow through with Dave B.'s suggestion (well, I didn't use a test suite from the unknown-to-me HD manufacturer, but rather one from Dell).

Do you have a sense of what an "in-place installation of Windows" will actually do to my overall system? E.g., I DO NOT want to lose my e-mail info, and ideally would like to avoid having to reinstall all of my aps until I have had a chance to reassess the whole shebang.

TIA
Sue B.

Note - there are (at least) two "Sue B"'s posting for help here. What can I say, but that I am not the other? So to distinguish us, I'll sign off with my partner's surname, hence

Sue Braden

Thanks!!!

Brian A. wrote:

"Susan B." <newsgroup_only@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:OBnft1hRHHA.4060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,
I'm running WinXPpro+sp2. My sole internal hard drive failed; with repeated applications of chkdsk, I was able to regain a limited dos-view of the entire disk (via the "r" option when you boot winXP from the original install disc).
I can copy and delete files from this mode, and make new directories. Yet in spite of the fact that I can cruise through the entire disk now via crippled-DOS, I cannot boot into Windows (I get the msg "You can attempt to ... Select 'r' at the first screen to repair).

Most of my data is backed up via Retrospect to another hard drive, but a couple of recent key data are in limbo. I'm bummed.

How might I best approach this? I have heard that there are great utilities for addressing this situation, but what are they?

I have only one idea, and would /really/ appreciate your feedback:
I could install windows on my external (via USB) drive, and hope to be able to then grab data from my internal drive. Or, similarly (?), buy another internal HD and install to that, then move data as needed.

So, what are good approaches to this? Might there be something simple I can do, given that I can "see" my data, perhaps aided by software for this?

Note that I have no internal floppy drive, only one via UBS, which I found constrains my options.

Many, many thanks for any help!

Sue

Aside from checking the integrity of the HD with a diagnostic utility obtained from the manufacturers support site,

How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

.

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