I have a SATA HD (that when working was my boot drive with XP Home on it) that will not boot. When I plug it into my computer (also tried on a friend's) the PC will not boot, even if the boot drive is NOT the corrupted one. In other words, I have a new HD that will boot, but the mere presence of the corrupted HD causes XP to fail to boot.
So, since SATA drives are hot-swappable, we tried booting in XP without the drive connected, then connecting it, then in the Device Manager hitting the "Scan for Hardware Changes" button. The Device Manager recognizes the drive, but after maybe 30 seconds, XP freezes. This is the case for both my own and my friend's PC. So, I created a bootable diskette with FDISK on it, and FDISK was able to recognize both my new, functioning HD and the old corrupted one, though I don't know enough about FDISK to tell which is which, but it could read 2 HDs, so I know one of them is the bad one.
Anyway, my question is what should I try next to see if I can repair the drive to recover some of my data? Is there a diskette I can use to force XP to boot with the bad HD connected? How can I run CheckDisk on a drive I cannot get XP to even recognize without freezing up?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!!!!
Brian
So, since SATA drives are hot-swappable, we tried booting in XP without the drive connected, then connecting it, then in the Device Manager hitting the "Scan for Hardware Changes" button. The Device Manager recognizes the drive, but after maybe 30 seconds, XP freezes. This is the case for both my own and my friend's PC. So, I created a bootable diskette with FDISK on it, and FDISK was able to recognize both my new, functioning HD and the old corrupted one, though I don't know enough about FDISK to tell which is which, but it could read 2 HDs, so I know one of them is the bad one.
Anyway, my question is what should I try next to see if I can repair the drive to recover some of my data? Is there a diskette I can use to force XP to boot with the bad HD connected? How can I run CheckDisk on a drive I cannot get XP to even recognize without freezing up?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!!!!
Brian