Hi-

I am stumped!  Have a Seagate 120GHz PATA hard drive partioned as 40GB for WinXP Pro (SP2) and 80GB as data.  While backing up C: and D: drives using Ghost10, the computer seized up and now will not boot.

BIOS recognizes drive and has no problem with it.
Windows starts to load but then the error:
     **********************************************************
      Windows could not start because the following FILE is missing or corrupt:

      \system32\ntoskrnl.exe.

      Please reinstall a copy of the above file.
     **********************************************************

I tried slaving the bad drive to an older drive with xp on it, but Windows will not see the slaved drive even in the Disk Management nor in explorer.

Partition Magic SAYS that the label of the primary, active partition is a whole bunch of question marks.  The second partition says:  DSK1_VOL2, but has an error#1516:  Partition Improperly Dismounted.

GDISK (Norton Ghost's version of FDISK) does not give any errors...
     3 partitions:
          1. 40GB active primary
          2. 80GB extended
          3. 80GB logical

I am now trying the XP recovery console (from my actual xp install disk...not a recovery disk)
I am trying to run XP recovery console, but get to a screen where it says:
      **********************************************************
      Microsoft Windows XP (TM) Recovery Console.

      The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.

      Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.
      **********************************************************

But no prompt EVER appears...even after an HOUR.  So I cannot run chkdsk or anything!

I suspect my primary partition is very corrupt, and the data partition is maybe hidden or also corrupt.  I am MOSTLY interested in my data and not as much about the OS.

Anyone with any thoughts-thanks!

Cathy
You could have a hard drive going bad.

You can try using Blindwrite to MAKE a duplicate copy
of your install disk it may be corrupt.

Sometimes a copy will work where the original did not.

--->BlindWrite