Windows XP Will Not Boot, Not Even In Safe Mode

[political]

Dear All,

(Firstly, allow me to apologise for being yet another ignorant "Average Joe" who has never contributed anything to a tech forum in my life, yet comes here crying for help when something goes badly wrong - I have sworn that I will donate to this forum if somebody can successfully assist!)

(Let me also emphasise that, although I have a general understanding of what is going on and can follow instructions reasonable well, I am not great with particular terminology.)

For reference, I am using a Dell Dimension 9200 bought exactly two years ago.

Basically XP will not boot, plain and simple - not even in any of the safe modes or in "last known good configuration".

My first port of call was the Dell Diagnostics CD that came with my system - I tried using the problem tree to pinpoint a specific test for my problem. I ended up running tests for "Cannot Boot the OS".
Everything seemed fine until it reached the tests for the SATA Hard Drive. The Confidence Test passed ok, but when the follwing test was taking place:

SATA Disk. S/N = S09QJIML911082 - Device Quick Check

The testing froze, and I encountered the follwing message:

Fatal Error TNT. 10049: Out of stack buffers, CS: EIP are in error values :
Error ocurred in real mode, exception/interrupt number 0071h
Err values = 0000D100h 000003F9h
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
Command or filename not recognized
F:\DIAGS\DIM32\A1276>

Now, obviously that means there is an issue with my hard drive - something corrupt or damaged. However, for piece of mind, I also ran the Express Test that tests the most crucial components of the entire system.
Again, when it reached the SATA tests, I experienced the following:

Error Code 0F00 : 065D
Msg: IDE device failed. The self-test failed the read portion of the test.

(I know that this CD is now two years out of date, so I also downloaded the latest Diagnostics file for my model from the Dell support website and burnt it to a DVD, however that DVD did not seem to work when I tried to boot my system from it.)





OK - I hope I haven't bored anybody with all that, but this is the part where I am looking for some advice. I know now to expect some level of data corruption (and thus, data loss), but want to know what I can do to minimise this and potentially correct the problem. I am prepared to go the distance rather than give up and just replace my hard drive.

Does anybody recommend the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows? (UBCD for Windows) or indeed any good user-friendly methods of working around problems like this and trying to recover unharmed data?

I'm also hoping that some of my data will remain unaffected because of my partitions, with all Windows and system files being on C: and most of my data files stored on D:

Any advice or help would be appreciated beyond words...

 

[KurrentEweser]

Regardless what method you use to recover your data, you'll need a place to put it. So get a new hard drive. Then reinstall XP from your Dell recovery disc. Hopefully with the bad hard drive connected to another SATA channel you'll be able to copy your files to the new drive.

 

[political]

Hi KurrentEweser,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to my problem.

Just to clarify for my rather linear-thinking brain - are you suggesting I access files on the corrupted drive(s) by simply removing the hard disk, inserting a new one in order to start from scratch on my PC - then attempt to connect the corrupt disk to the computer externally in order to copy?

 

[KurrentEweser]

Hi KurrentEweser,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to my problem.

Just to clarify for my rather linear-thinking brain - are you suggesting I access files on the corrupted drive(s) by simply removing the hard disk, inserting a new one in order to start from scratch on my PC - then attempt to connect the corrupt disk to the computer externally in order to copy?

Either externally via an USB enclosure or internally using one the three remaining SATA connectors.


Documentation

 

[political]

This may be a stupid question, but if I was to try that - wouldn't I essentially have two separate Windows XP systems linked up and running together - would that give me any problems that I should be aware of?

 

[KurrentEweser]

No. Not as long as the boot order in bios is set to the new drive and no other hard drive is included in the list.

 

[political]

I'm a little confused - when you say "new drive", which drive are you referring to? And do you mean "no other drive" other than the healthy one and the corrupt one?

 

[Trotter]

What I think Kurrent is saying, is that you can install a new hard drive, install all of your software (OS ad programs on it), and then put you old drive in as a slave.

This will allow you to access the data on the drive, but not run the OS or programs.

Something about this doesn't add up right in my mind. how exactly did you come to the conclusion that the hard drive is bad?

Have you tried a repair installation of Windows yet?

 

[political]

Hi Trotter,

Thanks for contributing to this thread.

Do you not think from the information I provided in my initial post that it is definitely an issue with the hard drive? One diagnostic test froze when it was testing the SATA disk, and the other test empahasised an error (see initial post for details).

If you think that there's a possibility it may not be the hard disk, please explain further...

Thanks again.

 

[KurrentEweser]

I'm a little confused - when you say "new drive", which drive are you referring to? And do you mean "no other drive" other than the healthy one and the corrupt one?

The test you ran clear shows that your hard drive is going bad. If there is any data that you need off of that drive, it's best not do any more writing to that drive or you may lose it.


Edit: I didn't see that you do have a healthy drive to copy your data to. You can use the Ultimate Boot CD Windows to see if your system drive is accessible.