Running Chkdsk or Scandisk in boot mode

[Guest]

I've tried reinstalling xp, but during the installation process an error
happened, and the system is stuck in an eternal loop where it always is
"restarting the installation"

I would like to see if running chkdsk on the harddisk could improve the
situation, but I don't know how to do this. I've tried inserting bootable
disks, but even though I get into dos mode chkdsk or scandisk are not
recognized as commands.

Any ideas how I can fix this?

Thanks

 

[Jerry]

DOS does not work with an NTFS file system so if you tried to install XP
with NTFS and boot with a DOS disk you are out of luck.

Did you try rebooting from the XP CD and reformating the drive?

 

[Guest]

Haven't tried reformatting the drive, would prefer not to
Inserting the xp installation disk has no effect - I still just get
"restarting installation". This also applies if I ask the system to boot from
the cd.
The file system is NTFS - I thought this was easier to recover data from!
What I was trying to do when I got into trouble was to repair my windows
installation - I couldn't get the display drivers to work properly, otherwise
everything ok. Would like to resume the repair process.

 

[Guest]

thanks,
I really didn't know I can't repair a NTFS disk from DOS! Thought NTFS was
the better filesystem to use.

Anyway, it looks like i have access to the format command from dos, but I
would like to avoid using it, I would get a lot of extra work if I have to
reinstall the computer, and lose some data. The OS also seemed fairly ok
before I got these problems, my preferred solution would be to be able to run
repair XP.

The really strange thing here is that even though I ask the computer to boot
from cd first (through setup settings) I always get this damn "setup is
restarting... " screen. I really don't know what to do about this, nor if
Chkdsk would solve my problems - actually I have started suspecting strongly
it won't.

 

[Jerry]

You could go to www.sysinternals.com and download their program that will
allow DOS to read an NTFS partition.