How Do Stop Chkdsk Running?

macman

I'm trying to fix a Dell Dimension 9150 running XP that wouldn't boot up. I managed to boot it up and ran the Dell diagnostics. Results rather ambiguous but seem to indicate partial hard disk failure.
I set it to ran Chkdsk on next reboot, which is has. Everything ran fine until stage 5 (checking free space) when it produced a stop error (unknown drive error reported).
Assuming the hard drive is on it's way out sooner or later, I thought the best policy is to get it running so that the data can be backed up. Problem now is that when I reboot it it tries to run Chkdsk again and repeats the stop error.
How can I restart it without it running Chkdsk please?

CASHMONEY_3

have you tried booting into safe-mode?

am not entirely sure if this bypasses running checkdisk though but you can try

macman

Wouldn't boot into Safe Mode, but managed to clear chkdsk using 'Last Known Good Configuration'. Thanks anyway, at least now can do a backup.

bookduck

Stop CHKDSK from running at boot time.

1.Edit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager
2.Change the BootExecute entry from:

autocheck autochk * /.........
To:
autocheck autochk *

Also have a look here: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_c.htm#cd