chkdsk says unrecoverable problems

[Guest]

I installed some software via CD (memories on tv)
and everything was fine until I booted up the next
day. Got into an endless boot loop. Was able to get
into XP once more (it had automatically run a scan
and said it had found and fixed a problem), deleted
the new software, rebooted, and was in the endless
loop again. Tried chkdsk but it didn't finish.
Also tried fixboot and fixmbr but no change.
I used Acronis Disk Director and True Image software
and messed around with restoring the image and
reformatting partitions. No dice.
Tried to reinstall XP on various partitions but it
always told me the same thing: "Disk doesn't
contain XP compatible partition."
I ran chkdsk from the recovery console one
last time and it said "Disk appears to contain
one or more unrecoverable problems".
I have a backup image (Acronis True Image) on an
external hard drive but XP won't install to it.
So what do I do? Take the hard disk into the shop
and then reinstall XP from the recovery disk and
then restore the image?
Any comments are enormously appreciated.

cheers
mike in japan

 

[Steve N.]

I installed some software via CD (memories on tv)
and everything was fine until I booted up the next
day. Got into an endless boot loop. Was able to get
into XP once more (it had automatically run a scan
and said it had found and fixed a problem), deleted
the new software, rebooted, and was in the endless
loop again. Tried chkdsk but it didn't finish.
Also tried fixboot and fixmbr but no change.
I used Acronis Disk Director and True Image software
and messed around with restoring the image and
reformatting partitions. No dice.
Tried to reinstall XP on various partitions but it
always told me the same thing: "Disk doesn't
contain XP compatible partition."
I ran chkdsk from the recovery console one
last time and it said "Disk appears to contain
one or more unrecoverable problems".
I have a backup image (Acronis True Image) on an
external hard drive but XP won't install to it.
So what do I do? Take the hard disk into the shop
and then reinstall XP from the recovery disk and
then restore the image?
Any comments are enormously appreciated.

cheers
mike in japan

You didn't say what, if any, switches you used when running CHKDSK,
however, "Unrecoverable errors" usually indicate bad sectors. Test with
the hard drive manufacturer's utility and run CHKDSK /R.

As far as using Acronis backups, RTFM.

Steve