Lost HD use, need help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Nelms
  • Start date Start date
D

David Nelms

I've lost the use of my hard drive on my Dell Dimension 8400. During a
shutdown, the power flipped off. When I tried to boot back up I got the
following message:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:"
\Windows\System32\Config\System

Notice there is not a c: preceding the message.

I have done the following.
1. Put XP Professional Install CD in to try the recovery console. Once
started it could not find a hard drive.
2. Ran XP setup and it could not find a hard drive.
3. Check BIOS settings. It does find the hard drive on SATA 0, reports
the brand and SN of the drive.
4. Ran Dell diagnostic CD, all works fine. Hard drive passed all tests.
5. Tried booting with a floppy disk. Once it started, it will not see
any c: drive.
6. Tried unseating and reseating all connections to the motherboard and
hard drive

Any ideas where to turn next? It appears the drive and the data is
intact on the hard drive, it just can't be seen.

What am I missing to do? As it stands now, even if I wanted to do a
reformat (really would like to avoid as last backup was a month ago), I
can't because the computer will not recognize I have a hard drive.

Any help or suggestions is appreciated.

David
 
David, with a SATA Drive you may need to reinstall the drivers for it
from a floppy or cd drive. When running the WinXP
CD try using a floppy with the drivers on it and tap F6 immediately when
you see the request to do so when the CD first
starts up. That will load the needed drivers. To try and fix your
system check this mskb.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
 
Rich Barry said:
David, with a SATA Drive you may need to reinstall the drivers for it
from a floppy or cd drive. When running the WinXP
CD try using a floppy with the drivers on it and tap F6 immediately
when you see the request to do so when the CD first
starts up. That will load the needed drivers. To try and fix your
system check this mskb.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
Click to expand...


David:
I really don't think it's a SATA controller driver issue that's at the root
of your problem.

In addition to perusing that MS article that Rich referred you to, also take
a look at
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_sys32.htm and see if there's anything
there that might help resolve the problem.

Frankly, we've had no luck with the rather tortuous process detailed in the
MS article the few times we've used it when this error message arose. We
were able to "resurrect" the systems (in most cases) through a Repair
installation of the XP OS. But I note that you can't even get that far using
the XP installation CD. And I assume there's no Dell recovery media that you
can successfully use?

It makes for a nasty situation. As a last resort where we are unable to
resolve the problem, we will install the HDD in another machine as a
secondary drive, and assuming we're dealing with a non-defective HDD
(hardware-wise), pull off as much data as we can and then made a fresh
install of the OS.

I assume you've been in touch with Dell tech support on this. If not, give
it a try.
Anna
 
Back
Top