Corrupt hard drive

Melissa22_Mum

I have a corrupt hard drive that has some important files on it. I have previously had one before and managed to reboot it however as expected it never was the same! I would like to know if I put the hard drive into this PC will I be able to fix it like that or would I have to use a separate tower to fix the problem. My dad has looked on the net and found a download that apparently fixes corrupt drives, you just download the programme (paod for not a freebie) and burn it to a disc then use it on the damaged drive. Could anyone tell me if these types of software downloads work, or can anyone recommend any software?

Browntoa

depends what you mean by corrupt ??

if windows has failed to boot because of a problem then the data is still there and easily recoverable by putting the hard disk in as a slave in another PC

Melissa22_Mum

It won't start or boot up, it means trawling round the net and finding all the registry codes and stuff, it was a while ago when I did it! Any ideas on a main site where I can get the codes?

Browntoa

theres no way to fix windows if it's badly corrupt apart froma re-install

you need to do as i said and get the data off first

fwor

Browntoa's right about a badly corrupted XP installation, although you can get lucky (as I did with my last attempt). If you have an XP installation disk, choosing Repair, Recovery Console and (after logging in as Admin) running chkdsk at the command line has worked for me before, and got it running long enough to copy all of the owner's personal data onto a USB pendrive. The hard disk continued to function for a while, but failed again 3 weeks later.

Incidentally, the syntax for chkdsk is different in the Recovery console - I think you need to use chkdsk /r from memory, but if you type chkdsk /? it should tell you the options.

Good luck...