Hard drive recognized but inaccessable XP won't boot

[Guest]

I'm was running XP Home edition with SP2 update on a Dell GX110 1GB Pentium
using bios A011. This is a PC I picked up used and just setup. It ran great
for 2 weeks or so, got everything reformatted, installed and updated. Now it
will not start up XP. I thought okay I'll run the recovery console and see
what I can do, if all else fails I'll just reformat it. Well whatever it has
got it won't let me do anything. I'm not sure if it is virus related or not.
I tried booting with CD support and It fails. I tried almost all the commands
in the recovery console and it tells my hard doesn't exist or is
inaccessable. I've looked around on the net and nobody seems to have quite
this problem. I ran partdisk in recovery console and it recognizes the 20 GB
hard drive but says it is inaccessable. I would be happy to just reformat
this thing and start from scratch, but the reformat command says the c drive
doesn't exist when I'm using the XP cd. If I try to re-install I get the
famous blue sreen of death and I'm told to restart in safe
mode.............If I could do that I wouldn't be trying to re-install. Any
ideas anyone?

 

[Anna]

I'm was running XP Home edition with SP2 update on a Dell GX110 1GB
Pentium
using bios A011. This is a PC I picked up used and just setup. It ran
great
for 2 weeks or so, got everything reformatted, installed and updated. Now
it
will not start up XP. I thought okay I'll run the recovery console and see
what I can do, if all else fails I'll just reformat it. Well whatever it
has
got it won't let me do anything. I'm not sure if it is virus related or
not.
I tried booting with CD support and It fails. I tried almost all the
commands
in the recovery console and it tells my hard doesn't exist or is
inaccessable. I've looked around on the net and nobody seems to have quite
this problem. I ran partdisk in recovery console and it recognizes the 20
GB
hard drive but says it is inaccessable. I would be happy to just reformat
this thing and start from scratch, but the reformat command says the c
drive
doesn't exist when I'm using the XP cd. If I try to re-install I get the
famous blue sreen of death and I'm told to restart in safe
mode.............If I could do that I wouldn't be trying to re-install.
Any
ideas anyone?

RT:
Just to make sure I and others understand your problem...

After you performed a fresh reinstall of the XP OS on your newly-purchased
machine, it ran without *any* problem for about two weeks before your
current problem surfaced, i.e., it booted without incident and functioned
perfectly. No problems whatsoever during those initial weeks. Is all this
correct?

Now, for no reason that you're aware of, it doesn't boot. Right?

Tell us precisely what happened during those initial failed boot attempts
before you got into the Recovery console. A black screen? Some sort of error
message(s)? Infinite reboots? What?

Have you used a hard drive diagnostic program to check out the HD? Might be
a good idea, no?

Have you tried running a Repair install - *not* a Recovery console repair -
with you XP installation CD? Might be another good idea, no?

We can go on from here...
Anna

 

[Guest]

Okay, it ran just fine, I can't think of one problem I had. When this
initially occured the PC had locked up on my wife while she was playing
Backgammon online and she shut it off. I turned it on the next morning and
after the Bios started it tried to boot from drive A: then drive C: then went
into MDA (not sure what this is but it was in the Dell Bios on the boot up
list) and searched it finally came to rest at a black screen that told me to
push F1 or F2 to enter bios setup or reboot, neither of which would work from
there.

I have not run a hard drive diagnostic program, any suggestions for an
inexpensive one that may help.

I did try a repair re-install with the XP cd first to no avail. It goes so
far then I get the blue screen advising safe mode.

Thanks Anna

Rob

 

[Jim]

Okay, it ran just fine, I can't think of one problem I had. When this
initially occured the PC had locked up on my wife while she was playing
Backgammon online and she shut it off. I turned it on the next morning and
after the Bios started it tried to boot from drive A: then drive C: then
went
into MDA (not sure what this is but it was in the Dell Bios on the boot up
list) and searched it finally came to rest at a black screen that told me
to
push F1 or F2 to enter bios setup or reboot, neither of which would work
from
there.

I have not run a hard drive diagnostic program, any suggestions for an
inexpensive one that may help.

I did try a repair re-install with the XP cd first to no avail. It goes so
far then I get the blue screen advising safe mode.

Thanks Anna

Rob

This certainly does sound like a hard failure of the disk. From what you
say, you will need to run a disk diagnostic from the CD drive. Perhaps
BartPE could do this.

I would not be optimistic about recovering anything from the disk.
Jim

 

[Anna]

Okay, it ran just fine, I can't think of one problem I had. When this
initially occured the PC had locked up on my wife while she was playing
Backgammon online and she shut it off. I turned it on the next morning and
after the Bios started it tried to boot from drive A: then drive C: then
went
into MDA (not sure what this is but it was in the Dell Bios on the boot up
list) and searched it finally came to rest at a black screen that told me
to
push F1 or F2 to enter bios setup or reboot, neither of which would work
from
there.

I have not run a hard drive diagnostic program, any suggestions for an
inexpensive one that may help.

I did try a repair re-install with the XP cd first to no avail. It goes so
far then I get the blue screen advising safe mode.

Thanks Anna

Rob

Rob:
When you say "I did try a repair re-install with the XP cd first to no
avail.", I'm assuming you're referring to the XP Repair install process you
invoke following the License Agreement/subsequent screens and *not* the one
through the Recovery Console. If my assumption is incorrect, please advise.
Even if the first one didn't work, I'd give it another try.

At this point you should use a HD diagnostic to check out your HD. These
diagnostic programs are freely available from virtually every HD
manufacturer, so ascertain the make of your HD and access that
manufacturer's website to download the diagnostic program. If there's some
problem with your determining the HD make, you can probably use the
diagnostic from Hitachi (it's called their Drive Fitness Test) - see
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm or the one from Western Digital
(Data Lifeguard Diagnostic) at
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=3

Those diagnostic programs will usually work with any of the major
manufacturers' hard drives.
Anna