Help / advice required: Laptop won't boot up in XP (1 Viewer)

[nlgbbbblth]

Would appreciate any advice on this situation.

Acer laptop.
XP pre-installed, no boot / OS disc.
Recovery backup disc created after installation.

Laptop crashed yesterday and was manually powered off.
Cannot restart in normal mode, safe mode, last known configuration - stuck in a loop.
Inserted recovery disc, pressed F2 and followed the boot options.
Acer eRecovery Management gives me option for a system restore but says that C drive will be wiped.
Some files on C drive are not backed up so do not want to lose them without trying something else.

Did not avail of this option and pressed cancel.

Is it possible to run a repair / recovery without losing C drive if I get hold of an XP boot / OS disc?

Neighbour may be able to locate a Dell XP disc that I can try - will there be compatability issues as mine is an Acer product?

Thanks.

 

[RayRay]

It sounds like its a goner. You cant put xp on it with wiping it. What you can do is remove the hard drive get a usb hard drive adapter then you can get the info off it by plugging it into another computer and just using it like an external hard drive.

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Or get Ultimate Boot CD off the internets.
It's bootable so you can get your files, and it has some recovery tools you can give a try too.

 

[ann post]

there's a few brands of linux that can boot from the CD drive, and with those sometimes you can view the C/ drive and whats in it without using windows. I'm pretty sure that you'd be able to drag the HD contents to an external drive like that. its a good 2-3 years since i was using that kind of thing but i'm pretty sure its doable.

http://www.livecdlist.com/

all those work off the CD.

its the same as ray ray's suggestion esseentially, except there's a chance of keeping the laptop functional.

 

[RayRay]

Yep id do the bookable linux thing before my idea... I jumped the gun a little ha

 

[ratmonkey]

never mind

 

[ratmonkey]

You might be able to run a chkdisk on it, (mightn't actually be any use, but can't hurt.)

 

[nlgbbbblth]

thanks for all the suggestions. Just back on thumped now - can't really see it at work anymore as I use IE6 there.

anyway - got hold of a Linux CD and moved the C drive files to the D drive.

then ran the recovery DVDs I made when I bought the laptop.

all seems to be well.

 

[GO]

Huzzah!