XP PC won't boot. Keeps restarting

[gingebond]

Hi guys

I have an PC running xp. It was powered off by plug and now when i turn it on it gets to windows screen then restarts.

I tried safe mode but still same.

I tried windows cd and repair. It says "autochk.exe cannot be located in either start up directory or CDROM drive".

The PC is quite old and probably on its last legs but it's the personal files I need so don't want to reinstall.

Anyone help a brother out?

[cunny]

Do a chkdsk /p from windows xp disc. Should sort the issue

[gingebond]

I have tried that cunny. I get the autock.exe missing error still

[dasteph]

if you are still getting the same error after using the xp disc can you remove the hard drive and put into another pc to copy the files.

[cunny]

Or use hirens boot cd and boot into mini xp and recover the files

[gingebond]

I tried ubuntu, what I had lying about, but got a graphics error and it wouldn't load.

So tried Hiren's boot cd and tried running mini xp but I get error NVRD325.sys is missing, so wouldn't load.

I will try putting hdd in another PC tonight.

[gingebond]

I put hdd in another pc. The pc already had two hdds so I removed the slave and replaced it with the faulty hdd.
When booted the hdd doesn't appear in my computer as D like the one I removed did. I tried disk management but I don't see it there either.
Have I done something wrong? Or something else I need to do?

[lidan]

You have two options: folow another pc with windows,or linux.For windows,a good software is easeus partition master,free edition(easeus.com).For linux,you can try with Gparted,it's very simple and popular,or any other,is very much here.In my opinion,I think that your hdd have problems,may be lost FAT.I saw many hdd with some problems,that after some time(1-2 months may be),lost FAT(from this series was some seagate baracuda Sata).No bads reporting from software management.Attention: never OS can't see a hdd which is unformatted.Only bios from computer.So,try with one of this software to partition it,formatted,etc.Normally, whichever software you should see your hdd.If the problem is repeated,it's posible that this hdd have firmware problem,but software for this...it' more complicated.

[lagerland]

I said it b4 if you aint got a back up of your backed up back ups,then its not backed up.Sounds like the hdd is dead 2 me..................

[R_J]

When you put the (I'll guess IDE) hard drive in the working computer did you change the jumper on the hard drive to SLAVE? Also does it see it in the bios? It should show up, might not be as `D' drive but should show up.