Cannot boot up XP

[Guest]

Whenever I boot up XP, it gets to the window with the small squares
scrolling, then the hard drive makes four short crunching sounds, and the
computer then shuts itself off and on, and continues to cycle through this
continuously.

I place my Recovery CD-rom (Windows XP Home edition version 2) in my CD
drive, but I can't ever get the PC to run it.

I tried hitting shift F10 right after booting, to go to the boot agent
(Realtek v2.11) and changing the boot order, and several other combinations
of changing. When I hit save/exit, the PC goes to the American Megatrends v
1.5 screen. The only choices that do anything are Y or N. If I select Y,
the PC starts to run, then I hear 8 short beeping sounds, then one second of
silence, then the 8 beeps again, and it cycles through this forever.

If I select N, I get the safe mode screen, and I've tried all combinations
of startup (Safe mode, safe mode with networking, last known config, etc.).
If I choose any of these, several files show as loading, but when it gets to
agp440.sys, the four crunching sounds occur, and the machine shuts itself off
and on again. I've also used F8 to get to the safe mode screen, with the
same results.
How can I get my machine to boot? If necessary, I am willing to lose all my
data.

 

[Jerry]

The 'crunching sounds' tells me your hard drive has gone bad.

 

[Guest]

The 'crunching sounds' tells me your hard drive has gone bad.

That is definitely a possibility, though the last time the crunching sound
was occurring about a year ago, I was able to re-install XP using the
recovery disk, though I lost all my data.

I'm still having this problem, and any other suggestions would be GREATLY
appreciated. I'm stuck using my son's laptop!

 

[Malke]

That is definitely a possibility, though the last time the crunching
sound was occurring about a year ago, I was able to re-install XP
using the recovery disk, though I lost all my data.

I'm still having this problem, and any other suggestions would be
GREATLY
appreciated. I'm stuck using my son's laptop!

Download a diagnostic utility from the hard drive mftr. Download the
file and make a bootable floppy or cd with it. Boot with the media and
do a thorough test. If the drive has physical errors, replace it.

Malke

 

[Guest]

I took my PC to a local repair facility, and they ran the diagnostics, and
found that the hard drive had several bad sectors. It was replaced. Thank
you all for your assistance.

 

[Malke]

I took my PC to a local repair facility, and they ran the diagnostics,
and
found that the hard drive had several bad sectors. It was replaced.
Thank you all for your assistance.

You are most welcome. Thanks for taking the time to come back and tell
us the resolution.

Malke