A friend of mine gave me a laptop to fix. It has XP Pro on it which won't boot. I started by re-installing XP Pro after spending many frustrating hours trying other ways to solve the problem. Anyway, it gets so far with the installation, does a memory dump, checks the hard drive integrity (which comes through ok) and then reboots and starts installing again. When the installation gets so far, the same thing happens again; in effect, an endless loop that goes no where.
I ended up using an evaluation version of Ontrack HDD Checker to check the hard drive. Basically Ontrack does four different checks. The hard drive fails one of the tests. Of course I fully expected it to fail the surface integrity test, but passed that and failed the file system integrity test. I was left with two ways to go.

1) Put in a new hard drive and install XP from scratch, or
2) Format the existing hard drive, then let Ontrack do its thing again and then if it passed all four tests, install XP from scratch.

By the way, has my friend been doing backups. Don't be silly; of course he hasn't!!!
I then thought, "How the hell am I going to get his data off the hard drive?" It just so happens that I have an external USB CD recorder. It also happens that his laptop is modern enough that it will boot from CD. With me so far? What I was thinking of doing is making a bootable CD which I can put in the inbuilt CD-ROM to boot the system up with. One problem, however, is that I wouldn't be able to get USB support for my CD recorder. So the question is, "Does anyone out there know how or where I can get a software product that I can put on CD that not only boots his laptop, but also loads the necessary drivers that will make the laptop's USB ports available?" Of course, it would also have to support writing to the CD. Sounds like a big ask to me, but who knows? Of course, what would be good would be a Windows operating system on CD, however that's not likely due to the different types of hardware.

It would not have been a problem is it was a desktop computer as I could've simple put his HDD in my desktop computer, configured it to be the next logical drive and voila. Unfortunately, laptops are not nearly so flexible.

Try PowerQuest Drive Image 7. It comes with a bootable CD, that boots into a Windows XP based environment, and allows access to networks and usb devices etc.

You can find it here ...

Drive Image 7 - Details

ERD Commander 2003 works like that too. Giving you access to networks and USB so you can backup your files if the system is dead.

ERD Commander 2003 costs $200, which is $130 more than Drive Image 7. It does provide a windows desktop, whereas drive image 7 only allows you to image your drive, though you can access individual files from that image when you boot into a windows OS and use the supplied image viewer.

ERD Commander 2003 would be the prefered choice if file access is all you want, and you don't mind spending the $200 to buy it. You can get it here ...

ERD Commander 2003

Hi, I could need some of your help. I have, kind of, the same problem with mwcomp. But the thing is that my Xp cd installed an other OS. So I have 2 XP's on my laptop. I need to take all my documents but it says "access denied". Do you know how can I manage this??
thx

Is there an other way??

I have already done that...but there is no security tab...only general, sharing and customize...I wnated to do that....
so???

Thanks for all the replies. I like the idea of the 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor. I do have one question though - I gather that the adaptor accepts the data cable and the power plug. I've probably answered my own question. Sorry.

It appears that Alexia needs more help now than I do at the moment. This may be helpful but then again maybe not. Have you actually logged in as Administrator; not just someone with administrator rights. Sometimes, depending on what you want to do, having administrator rights is not quite enough. You actually need to be logged in as Administrator.

Thanks guys/gals.


ANOTHER PROBLEM/QUERY:
ATTENTION: Sysop - If this should be in a new thread let me know and I'll repeat the problem again as a new thread.

I have another question. What keeps creating files by the name of Perlib_PerfData_xxx.dat in my Windows\Temp directory - XP Pro SP1? The 'xxx' appears to be a hex number. My PC also appears to make this type of file every time its booted. They are 16KB in length and I have got so many of them it's absolutely ridiculous. I have also had a look in the registry and they appear to be generated by Microsoft.NET, but I am not absolutely sure of this. Personally I don't see the purpose of them as I don't even use the service, if it is Microsoft.NET. Or is this just big brother getting bigger?

the program you are looking for is PEBuilder. you can build a bootable CD with a self contained OS that you can then exxtract the contents of the hard drive by burning what you need onto CD's (PE Builder allows you to add nero to it.)

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

PEBuilder reads like it's just what I need. I have already downloaded it and will put it together. It will take time to do, but it's certainly one answer to my problem.

Having said that, and thankyou "iss", I think what would solve all my problems is software that actually reads the data on the hard drive, formats that particular section of the hard disk and then dumps the previously read data back to where it came from. The software would also have to be able to fix files that all being reported with an incorrect file size, etc... similar to scandisk. I could perhaps use scandisk but am not sure whether I would have to use the "formatting" software first or scandisk. Logic tells me that I should probably use the "formatting" software first and if every thing appears to be ok, then, and only then, run Scandisk.

Additionally, there must be some freeware somewhere out there that does the formatting part.

Any comments please would be greatly appreciated.