I have a Dell XPS system that is about 2 years old. It has 2 gb of ram,
also has a western digital 250 gb hard drive. I normally (stupidly)
keep my computer on all the time and never had any problems with any of
my other 3 computers being left on (when they were new).

Yesterday I arrived to my home and realized that my mouse wouldn't
move. I thought the system locked so I turned off and on the computer.
The computer went through the first boot up process that shows the Dell
logo with a bar that fills as it loads up. The bar went to about half
way and wouldn't move. I waited about 20 minutes to make sure the
system wasn't just slow and it still wouldn't move. I turned it on and
off and this time it would stop at the 3/4 way mark (I believe its the
bios loading or something because its not the screen with the windows
logo.

I was frustrated. At about the 5th time I passed the point and it went
into an option to safe boot, safe boot with network, last known safe
point, and start normally (I'm at work and can't be too specific). I
picked start normally and it gave me the message that a system file was
corrupt and that I could fix it by placing the windows cd and restarting
and picking "r" for repair. I restarted, again, lock up at 1/4 mark on
bar. I restarted and again back to the options for reboot. I picked
last known safe spot and again the "file cannot be found or is corrupt
(system file)."

I placed the windows xp disk and after it started i pushed R and it
tells me that my hard drive cannot be found. I thought, WOW. I
restarted with the xp disk again and picked to reinstall windows and it
said the hard drive could not be found.

I tore up the garage and found the diagnostic disk for the xps system
and thought my hard drive was fried. I did ALL the diagnostics and it
shows no problems at all. Everything passed. So the Dell diagnostic
disk sees my hard drive but the xp disk does not. I did some googling
and found the sites that state that the sata disk might need a driver
to start so figured I would try that. I went to Dell.com, placed my
service number and it had a section for "Sata drivers" but only with
MAXTOR on it. I have a western digital. My xps also does NOT have a
floppy drive (never had it installed) and from what I read the xp disk
can't read off of a cd drive only floppies.

I had a ton of stuff on my hard drive and this is the ONLY sata system
that I have. I don't know how to save what I got on the disk or how to
fix this problem. I don't know what to do and am frustrated because the
only place I can view the internet is at work and not in the comfort of
my own home.

My bios shows sata 0 is ON. When i change it to sata 1 and move the
cable from the hard drive to sata 1 on the hard drive it shows the sata
1 is on and gives a message that the sata 0 could not be found so I know
the bios sees the hard drive or it would have given me an error
initially. Am I out of luck? I can try to get more info that you want
me to give when I get home and post tomorrow. I have no internet or
computer anymore. :(


--
karaldesdesdan
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Hi karaldesdesdan,

I hope that you have your Documents, and Briefcase Folder on a different
partition, on that Hard Drive. I also hope that your E-mails are backed up
onto a different partition.

Do you have a Drive / Partition Image of your operating system?

Do you have room in your computer to remove that Hard Drive and install
a second Hard Drive and install Windows XP onto that Hard Drive, if the
information on that Hard Drive is needed?

I would buy another Hard Drive and install Windows XP on that Hard
Drive. After Windows XP is installed, shutdown the computer and install the
removed Hard Drive as a Slave or Secondary Master, because you have a SATA
Hard Drive. Reboot the computer and tried to recover the information on that
Hard Drive. Since you aren't using that Hard Drive, you can run Chkdsk / R
from within Windows on the Hard Drive you can't boot.

I love the Dual-boot.


--
thecreator

"karaldesdesdan" <karaldesdesdan.39ixrd@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:karaldesdesdan.39ixrd@DoNotSpam.com...
>
> I have a Dell XPS system that is about 2 years old. It has 2 gb of ram,
> also has a western digital 250 gb hard drive. I normally (stupidly)
> keep my computer on all the time and never had any problems with any of
> my other 3 computers being left on (when they were new).
>
> Yesterday I arrived to my home and realized that my mouse wouldn't
> move. I thought the system locked so I turned off and on the computer.
> The computer went through the first boot up process that shows the Dell
> logo with a bar that fills as it loads up. The bar went to about half
> way and wouldn't move. I waited about 20 minutes to make sure the
> system wasn't just slow and it still wouldn't move. I turned it on and
> off and this time it would stop at the 3/4 way mark (I believe its the
> bios loading or something because its not the screen with the windows
> logo.
>
> I was frustrated. At about the 5th time I passed the point and it went
> into an option to safe boot, safe boot with network, last known safe
> point, and start normally (I'm at work and can't be too specific). I
> picked start normally and it gave me the message that a system file was
> corrupt and that I could fix it by placing the windows cd and restarting
> and picking "r" for repair. I restarted, again, lock up at 1/4 mark on
> bar. I restarted and again back to the options for reboot. I picked
> last known safe spot and again the "file cannot be found or is corrupt
> (system file)."
>
> I placed the windows xp disk and after it started i pushed R and it
> tells me that my hard drive cannot be found. I thought, WOW. I
> restarted with the xp disk again and picked to reinstall windows and it
> said the hard drive could not be found.
>
> I tore up the garage and found the diagnostic disk for the xps system
> and thought my hard drive was fried. I did ALL the diagnostics and it
> shows no problems at all. Everything passed. So the Dell diagnostic
> disk sees my hard drive but the xp disk does not. I did some googling
> and found the sites that state that the sata disk might need a driver
> to start so figured I would try that. I went to Dell.com, placed my
> service number and it had a section for "Sata drivers" but only with
> MAXTOR on it. I have a western digital. My xps also does NOT have a
> floppy drive (never had it installed) and from what I read the xp disk
> can't read off of a cd drive only floppies.
>
> I had a ton of stuff on my hard drive and this is the ONLY sata system
> that I have. I don't know how to save what I got on the disk or how to
> fix this problem. I don't know what to do and am frustrated because the
> only place I can view the internet is at work and not in the comfort of
> my own home.
>
> My bios shows sata 0 is ON. When i change it to sata 1 and move the
> cable from the hard drive to sata 1 on the hard drive it shows the sata
> 1 is on and gives a message that the sata 0 could not be found so I know
> the bios sees the hard drive or it would have given me an error
> initially. Am I out of luck? I can try to get more info that you want
> me to give when I get home and post tomorrow. I have no internet or
> computer anymore. :(
>
>
> --
> karaldesdesdan
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> karaldesdesdan's Profile:
> http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=49545
> View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=969672
>
> http://forums.techarena.in
>

Yes, I have room. The system is huge. I guess what your saying is that
probably its the hard drive thats messed up? Wow, all the kids photos
were on that hard drive (shows me that I need to get a backup system of
some sort). I never touched the hard drive so I have no partition image
done on the computer (I don't even know how to do that). I guess I can
go to Best Buy and buy another hard drive. Any recommendations on
brand? Wow. I have some computers that run great (they are in
storage) that I used for years and years and years with no problem.
Buy an overly expensive XPS system and 2 years later its toast. Thank
you for the quick reply.

Ps. I don't know if I can find my actual xp restore disk. Should I
rebuy xp or buy vista if I can't find it?

pss. The Dell diagnostics showed no problems with the hard drive.


--
karaldesdesdan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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