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C: Partition1 [Unknown] - what happened?

T

ThatWasFat

Member
This morning my house lost power and now my dad's computer is fubar.

At first when it rebooted I got an error saying that \SystemRoot\System32\hal.dll was corrupted or missing, so I tried to go to recovery console and replace it, but then when I did

C:\dir

it said "An error occured during directory enumeration"

So this led me to believe that C: itself was corrupted, not just hal.dll, and in the Windows install I saw "Partition1 [Unknown]" and my beliefs were confirmed.

My question is, what EXACTLY went wrong here? Partition table? Some random Windows thing I don't know about? And how can I fix it?

Or, more specifically, if I fix it, will I have to install all of my dad's programs and mail and such again? Because if I have to do all the work again even if I fix it, I'd rather just reformat.

Thanks
 
try to run a repair install. otherwise, get all the data off it, and reformat. that happened to me once. i ended up reinstalling windows. you could try to run checkdisk from the repair console.
 
Next boot with your XP CD and go into the recovery console.

Run chkdsk, if this fails it shows your partition is FUBAR.

Then run fixmbr and fixboot. These might reset your MBR and your bootloader


Otherwise a partition recovery software is in order. - Acronis partition recovery expert
 
OK ChkDsk failed hard. It worked and worked and worked for like 40 minutes and then it said something along the lines of "It appears this volume has unrecoverable errors".

Am I done? Do I have to just reformat?
 
Definately replace the ribbon cable. 60% of the time HDD problems are corrosion on the cable contacts. Just removing and re-inserting both ends of the cable will clean the contacts, but ribbons are cheap and I'd replace it.

Download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic utility from their web site. Run the full (Advanced) diagnostic which will take a few hours.

If the drive fails, it's a lost cause. You MAY be able to recover some of your files off of it by connecting it as a spare on another computer and copying your documents folder of of it.
 
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