smart failure

External Since: May 08, 2005 Posts: 2

Hi,

Smart failure. Windows 200 Prof won't boot (machine just keeps
restarting). When machine is booted from a floppy disk, the C: drive is
unavailable.

Question: How bad is this, can I get the data off the disk?

The disk isn't mine (so please dont tell me i should have backed up
etc).

Thanks,
Mike.

External Since: Nov 09, 2003 Posts: 2317

<mike.RemoveThis@adoanywhere.com> wrote in message
news:1115570369.297881.273260@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> Smart failure. Windows 200 Prof won't boot
> (machine just keeps restarting). When machine is
> booted from a floppy disk, the C: drive is unavailable.

> Question: How bad is this,

Pretty bad.

> can I get the data off the disk?

Maybe. It cant be completely dead, otherwise it wouldnt boot at all.

Its a bit odd that it cant be seen at all from a floppy boot,
but is visible enough to attempt a boot. Try the ultimate
boot CD and see what you can see of the drive from that.
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/" target="_blank">http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/</a>

It would be worth trying the drive as a slave in another
system, it may be that the problem isnt actually in the
drive itself, but in the controller or the cable or
somewhere more fundamental like the motherboard etc.

> The disk isn't mine (so please dont
> tell me i should have backed up etc).