Boot problem!!

[Sandra]

I was working in MS Excel on my laptop and had a lock-up.
I turned the computer off using the power button, and am
now getting the blue screen of death!

Message reads:
*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0x8184F890, 0xC0000015, 0x00000000,
0x00000000) INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

I have a MS-DOS boot disk (made from WinXP), the Windows
2000 setup floppies (#4), and startup disks for Partition
Magic 6.0 (#2).

I can get the A: drive prompt, but none of the boot-up
disks can read my C: (boot) drive. It's as though it
wasn't there.

I'd like to run chkdsk, but can't get a C: prompt. Virus
scanned recently, so don't think it is a boot virus.

The hard drive was originally divided into one primary
partition with two extended partitions. I used Partition
Magic 6.0 to move some space from drive E: to Drive C:.

Please help! I'm not a total beginner, but will probably
need a step-by-step description...

 

[William R. Walsh]

Hi!

Undoubtedly, the "Write cache enabled" setting was turned on for your hard
disk--as it is by default in Windows 2000 and XP. (When you get back up and
running, look in Device Manager > Disk Drives > <Hard Disk Name> > Disk
Properties and see if that option is checked...)

When your system went down, enough of the file system was still waiting to
be written out to the disk that now your file system is pretty massively
corrupted. This is why your boot disks cannot see anything. There isn't
really anything left to see now.

Apart from the services of a data recovery program or company, there isn't a
whole lot you can do right now other than to reformat, reinstall and *turn
off the write caching*.

William