My Dell XPS 400 desktop PC with Windows XP (all available updates are installed), will not boot and I am out of options. After the loading screen, it goes to a BLUE screen (not BSOD, but it may be) and says the volume is dirty and automatically runs a CHKDSK. It FAILS during step 2 (verifying indexes). Here are the other things I have tried:

-Booting from CD to repair install windows XP, stalls at 25%
-Tried recovery console, chkdsk will not work there either
-Tried to boot in safe mode, did not work, now I am not even given that option.

I only want to get files off of this hard drive but am out of ideas. I have a new Dell XPS M1330 laptop with Vista. Is there a way to hook my PC hard drive to my laptop and access files, or can I purchase a new internal hard drive for the PC, install windows on it, and access my files that way, without having to load windows on my currently jacked-up hdd? I have exhausted my computing skills and am stuck. Please help. My guess would be that HDD is failing...

STOP using it immediately.
Remove it from the dead machine and hook it up as a slave drive on the working machine.
Don't try and burn your important DATA...copy it to the good machine's drive...you can always burn the data later.

Jumper diagrams will be on top of the HDD otherwise visit the drive manuf. site...

Best of Luck !That is what I figured. I just need to go purchase a new HDD. I got a reply from another post on another site that said I could boot Knoppix program (LINUX) from a CD and access the files on my hard drive, then transfer them to an external USB drive (which I have). Can you SPEAK to this?