Unfortunately (?!), I have a Dell laptop (D600) in which I have been
experiencing the same thing. Here's what you can do to save ANYTHING on your
HD that's IN the laptop. The issue is that your boot sector on the HD is
toast or at least the part the 'makes' the HD bootable. As an alternative,
turn off the laptop, just unplug ALL USB devices and let the laptop 'sit' for
30 seconds to clear memory etc. Then reboot. If no luck (probably not),
then you'll need to go to your cloned/backup HD, if you have one.
1) Hopefully you have a complete backup (clone) of your HD. This is a full
image backup. If not, you 'may' need to run Windows XP Repair on the OS.
[I've not tried this.] Or you may just need to create a NEW HD with WinXP on
it and install your programs onto the new HD. DO NOT install over the
existing HD info. Just go a computer store and get an 80GB+ IDE 2.5" HD with
an external housing (like NexStar). Take out the Dell supplied (40GB, if I
remember correctly) and put the Dell 'boot' onto the HD you bought at the
store. They all should work. You probably have Toshiba or Western Digital
HD - both work fine. Just make sure it's a laptop 2.5" HD and don't go too
high on the GB. I'd stay 160GB or under (<$100). You'll need to re-install
Windows in this situation AND reinstall ALL your programs onto the new HD.
Use DEFAULT settings and installation options.
2) Go to
www.beyondcompare.com and buy their comparison utility. I think it
runs $40-ish with a fully functional trial period. It runs a COMPLETE
directory/file-by-file comparison and then allows you to copy/move the
appropriate files. You'll probably need to watch out to copy the Outlook
files (*.pst and *.ost etc.) which BC will find. I can't do with it! (No, I
don't work for them either nor do I have any $ in this!) ;-) BC will allow
you to get ALL your Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, SQL, Vision,
Access, etc. etc. etc. files off without any issues (I've never had any and
I've done this 20+ times!)
3) If you need a cloning utility there are several for WinXP. I use EZGig
II but I'm sure the other's are fine. [The utility may come from the HD you
bought at the store or see Dell... or just buy EZ Gig II or whatever.] It
takes about 3+ hours to clone my 160GB HD via the USB2 port on my laptop. I
clone each week to 14 days. If/when I get a failure on boot, I just remove
the non-bootable HD, put in the cloned/backup, run Beyond Compare and I'm
fine. (I have SQL on my laptop with Office 2003 and I've never had an issue
in the copy-over etc.). My total time involvement now is about 1-1.5 hours
from 'oh, no' to 'oh, YES!'.
4) No, I don't know why your situation occurs. Don't think it's virus etc.
but I do have McAfee to stop mine. Make sure you discharge for static
electricity before handling your computer or working on it day-by-day.
Oh, I've looked at boot-sector repair utilities but I've never used them.
Again, backup/clone your HD each week and not to exceed 2 weeks!
HTH...
