Windows XP Will Not Boot, Not Even In Safe Mode - Hard drive fault

**Hybr!d** · #21 3rd Sep 2008, 03:44

Correct, you should now be able to put the drive back in it's original place and it will would fine.

Sounds like all it had was some file table corruption. Lucky.

**political** · #22 3rd Sep 2008, 04:12

Dave, thanks so much to both you and Phil for all your help.

Turns out I was indeed extremely lucky and the solution was very simple, but I still would not have gotten through it without your support.

I will be donating to the Computer Juice forums - the name on the PayPal account is not mine, but I will put a note so you know it is from me...

**political** · #23 3rd Sep 2008, 04:37

Just to let you know, the donation is in the name of "Wilfried"

**philthomas** · #24 3rd Sep 2008, 07:02

Glad you managed to retrieve all your data

If you ran chdsk on the drive, that may well have repaired a few bad sectors. If the drive does work ok and boot into Windows, when you return it to the old PC, you need to be aware of one thing :
When chkdsk reports it has repaired the bad sectors ... what it actually does is hide them, not repair them. If the disk is damaged it cant repair actual damage.
So it could be a sign that the drive is getting old/worn and may be susceptible to further problems. My advice would be ... cut your losses and get a new drive .. they are cheap now ..... or use it for your OS and store all your data on a different drive, just in case. Next time you may not be so lucky

**political** · #25 3rd Sep 2008, 08:14

Thanks Phil

That's exactly what I was thinking anyway. Over the two years i've had the drive, it has taken a lot of writing onto it and deleting off of it, as well as a couple of chkdsk repairs that stated the "volume was dirty".

I'm going to order a new drive today - any suggestions? I've been impressed with the durability of this one, considering the logical battering it's taken. It is a Samsung, but I also trust Western Digital, Lacie and Seagate through experience.

**philthomas** · #26 3rd Sep 2008, 08:19

My choice would be Western Digital and Samsung, in that order.

If you go for a larger drive, give the Samsung 1TB a miss, as I hear, on good authority, this is prone to failure. The Samsung 750mb is OK though.

**political** · #27 4th Sep 2008, 11:21

OK, i've gone and bought a 640GB Western Digital Caviar model. Should arrive either tomorrow or Saturday.

Thanks again for all the help! (Although I might be starting a new thread soon - having big problems trying to burn to DVD...)

**Hybr!d** · #28 4th Sep 2008, 13:31

Glad to help, account upgraded to Donator, thanks for the kind donation, helps keep this place running.