James said:
When I powered on the PC, chkdsk would come on saying about consistency on
the hard drive and recommended it to be run rather than hitting any key to
cancel it, so I let it ran, and it hang after 25% in the 1st phase. There
is
no way to get out of it except to press power off and then on again. The
same
thing happened at 25%. I even leave the machine on all night, the
following
morning it still says 25%. On one occasion, I pressed a key to cancel
chkdsk,
I was able to get into windows XP but it was running very slow including
the
IE. I wonder if the hard drive is bad. Please help. Thanks.
(James later adds...)
James said:
Thanks db, I will try it at home. Is the repair console same as the the
Recovery console mentioned in Microsoft documents? and do I need to back
up
the data files before I proceed? Thanks.
James:
First, as "philo" recommended, check out your HDD with the HDD diagnostic
utility that you can download from the disk's manufacturer. You've got to
determine that you're dealing with a non-defective HDD. If the disk proves
defective you'll have no choice but to replace it. Then you can install it
in your system (I'll assume you're working with a desktop machine) as a
secondary HDD (after installing a new HDD & fresh-installing the XP OS onto
that drive) and try to copy off as much data as you can assuming you'll be
able to access that drive.
If your present HDD checks out OK...
Forget about the Recovery Console business.
Probably the wisest course at this point would be to undertake a Repair
install of the XP operating system for which you will need the XP OS
installation CD. We're assuming that your XP installation CD is a "full" CD,
not an OEM-branded recovery disk, and as such you'll be able to run a Repair
install from that XP installation CD. Unfortunately many users who have a
OEM-branded PC do not have this "full" XP installation CD and therefore
cannot run the Repair install that I'm going to generally describe.
The process of undertaking a Repair install of the OS is relatively
straightforward. It would be roughly akin to making a fresh install of the
OS, but in nearly every case your existing programs & user-created data
would be retained. While it would be a rather rare situation where data
would be lost or corrupted as a result of the Repair install (even if such
was unsuccessful), and as unlikely as it may be, it *could* happen. I
mention this because if there is any data on the HDD that is absolutely
crucial to you and which you could not tolerate its loss, then you should
*not* undertake the Repair install at this point, but rather first attempt
to access the data through other means, for example, by installing the disk
in another machine as a secondary drive and copy the data you need.
There are a number of websites that contain step-by-step instructions for
undertaking a Repair install. As I previously indicated the process is not
at all difficult and not terribly time-consuming. If you do a Google search
on "XP repair install", you'll be pointed to many of these sites. Here are a
few...
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#RI
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=138
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341
Assuming the Repair install is successful, you should use your anti-virus
and/or any other anti-malware program that you use to immediately check out
your PC for any virus infestation. Also, you will need to download/install
*all* the MS critical updates since SP3. (I'm assuming that if you do
undertake the Repair install, you will be doing so with a "slipstreamed" XP
CD that contains SP3. But if that's not available use whatever XP OS
installation CD is at your disposal).
Needless to say, there's no guarantee that the Repair install will be
successful since there may be problems present - hardware or software -
other than a mildly-corrupted OS that a Repair install will generally
correct. But it seems to me that based upon your description of the problem
it's certainly worth a try at this point.
Again, should the Repair install prove successful use your A-V program to
immediately check out your PC for any virus infestation. And, of course,
install any MS critical updates to bring your system up-to-date
security-wise.
Anna
