OT: Windows is no longer recognized...

jrazz wrote on 8/2/2005, 10:34 PM
I know that this is not a windows help forum, but you all are helpful for everything else, so I thought I would give it a try.

I have my primary hard drive with windows on it. I was doing some editing, it locked up. I shut it down manually and reloaded. I got the ntldr missing message and since I have had this before, I jiggled some wires and made sure the connections were good as this has worked before, but it did not work this time. I opened up the repair console of XP Pro via CD and tried copying the ntldr file but to no avail. I then chose fixboot and fixmbr but to no avail. I then tried to rebuild the boot record. Once I restarted, it recognized the ntldr file but gave me this message after it showed 4 options for operating systems
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."
I tried to go back into the repair console and fix the boot master record, but now it does not even find the disk as I searched with chkdsk and it says that it has irrecoverable damage. I know that there is a way to fix the boot record, I just need to know how to get there to do it. I can type the drive letter and it allows it to come but you cannot use the command prompt to change anything about it as it says that it is inaccessable.
Any help would be much appreciated as I do not want to reinstall and I have a project due this coming Monday.
Thanks for anything!

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 8/2/2005, 11:56 PM
Put the drive into another computer as a slave drive. You *might* be able to get to your data this way.

GlennChan wrote on 8/3/2005, 9:02 PM
Spinrite may also help if the drive picked up a bad sector or something (fixes specific hardware problems). If the drive doesn't spin up, Spinrite won't help. In that case you should look at professional data recovery. If the data isn't that valuable, try http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-5029761.html (Not recommended if you have money for professional data recovery!!)

Programs like Active Undelete can solve problems with messed up master file tables (software problems).

http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

EDIT: Spinrite might be inappropriate. It could be a hard drive problem (in which case you could be in bad trouble) or it could be something else entirely.

If you really need to get the project done quickly, it might be worth trying to:
A- Slave the drive in another computer.
Watch out for static... ground yourself first by touching exposed metal on the back of the computer's power supply.
Read the manual if you don't know how to install a hard drive.
If your computer is an OEM one (i.e. dell, sony, hp) then read the manual for the computer to figure out the physical stuff.
You may need to change the jumper setting on both drives to cable select and cable select. Or do master on one, slave on the other.

See if you can copy your .vegs over and things like that.

B- Otherwise, just use the other computer to finish your edit.