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computer won't boot

J

jeremyTHEc

Junior Member
hey everyone,

i've recently been having problems with my Dell Dimension 4300S after installing the latest security updates from Microsoft. (I had automatic updates turned on) My computer had been working perfectly for around 4 years, only modifications i did were another stick of RAM and a video card swap for a Nvidia Gforce4MX440.

When I attempted to boot up my computer the morning after, I was greeted with this:

Warning: Dell's Disk Monitoring System has detected that drive 0 on the primary EIDE controller is operating outside of normal specifications. It is advisable to immediately back up your data and replace your hard drive by calling your support desk or dell computer corporation.

Press F1 to Continue F2 to go to Setup

After pressing F1, the computer told me that "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt. System32\Drivers\isapnp.sys

I looked up isapnp.sys and my attempts to rename the file and replace it in the recovery console have failed. I ran chkdsk /r and the computer got to 32% before printing out "The Volume Appears to contain unrecoverable problems" and stopping. I can't boot my computer into safe mode, i get the same error.

My question is: Is there anything more I can do to recover my data? I seriously want reformatting or replacing the hard drive to be my absoloute final option. (if it will do anything). Also, is anyone else having problems after installing that latest update?

thanks in advance
 
I dont know how to find the manufacturer of my drive or how to acquire diagnostic software. I dont think its listed on Dells website.
 
To find the manufacturer, open the Dell and look at the drive.

This sounds to me like the disk has significant corruption due to a hardware problem that SMART appears to have caught, but too late to do anything about it.

If under warranty I'd get Dell on the phone(who knows; perhaps you have Dell's 4 year warranty); if not I'd look into getting a new drive in there, putting Windows on it, and then attaching this drive to the machine and seeing if you can pull any data from it.
 
alright, found the drive manufacturer to be Western Digital and found some diagnostic software to burn onto a cd

booted from the cd and ran the quicktest, gave me Error Code 0004 and "Warning! One or more current or worst case attributes are below the threshhold".

I guess the drive is dead. no sense in reformatting. This should have been the first thing i should have done rather than go on a wild goose chase in the recovery console trying to repair Windows.
 
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