Installing dual boot xpPro after crash

[westpase-he_ac]

I'm at a loss, I had a crash where program froze and
I tried to close the program by clicking the "X" in the
upper right corner. Got a blue screen box that closed
before I could read it. All attempts of restarting go
though a screen stating Windows failed to start
properly, would I like to try in Safe Mode,etc.
None have worked, I tried the installation disc,
ran chkdsk from the command prompt, fixed
something, but still no clean boot. I put in the install
disc again, it found another version of windows
and asked if I wanted to creat a dual boot partition.
I stopped at that point. I really would like to recover
some files off this machine and am concerned that
I will lose access or overwrite them by doing the
dual boot installation.
Would I be able to see the files or folders that
are currently on the C: drive if I dual install XP?
My other option might be to put the problem drive
in an external case, get a new HD for the laptop
and just try and recover the files that way if its
possible to do that.
Any expertise would be appreciated.

 

[sgopus]

At this point a dual boot is not a good idea, I would suggest a repair
install, and plan on replacing that Hard disc ASAP.

So your saying you booted to the install cd and it found two seperate
installs of XP?

 

[westpase-he_ac]

At this point a dual boot is not a good idea, I would suggest a repair
install, and plan on replacing that Hard disc ASAP.

So your saying you booted to the install cd and it found two seperate
installs of XP?



"(e-mail address removed)" wrote:

snip
Hi, thanks for your caution,
No, it found the flawed install of XP and asked
if I wanted to create a second.
I thought I had tried a repair install, but it didn't
fix the startup problem. I can go to Bios on
start-up. Can I set it to stop at that blue screen
and get the details of the error?
It's a Dell c840 2.4 Ghz.
I was running a FFT program in a realtime mode
for several hours without stopping it, and maybe
ran out of physical memory and locked it up.
Not connected to internet except for updating OS
from MS updates. No email, or browsing.
Any other details that might be relevent just ask
and I'll try to clairify them
Thanks.