Doa

I have a dell 8300 P4. I turn it on, get the dell screen then xp screen and then it locks. Also locks up in safe mode. I'm thinking hard drive is dead. How can I do a data recovery or atleast make it pull up my desktop. Dell wants me to do a fresh install. Don't think that will fix it. Even if it does I don't want to lose my data. Thanks

 

have you tried to put the harddrive into a different PC?

 

No not yet.

 

I put the hard drive in another comp. and it works. My hard drive isn't the issue. What else could it be? Thanks.

 

PSU, bad cable, bad IDE/SATA controller...

 

yes just make sure everything is clean and plugged in. Also try another IDE or SATA plug.

Also if it works in other computers it still could be a software problem.

Because it could be a driver error / clash on your hard drive with any hardware you have on your computer, that doesnt bother it on other computers. I hope you understood that.

i hope this helps.
UKARMYCADET

 

If you're getting the Windows splash screen, the hard drive isn't dead. But you knew that already.

It sounds like the problem might be with your Windows installation -- a corrupted filesystem or registry, or something like that. A hardware problem is possible, but not likely -- unless it's a bad sector on your hard drive that has corrupted a file that Windows needs to start. To check that possibility, download the diagnostics from the website of the manufacturer of your hard drive. It'll make a boot disk; diagnostics of that kind generally cannot run within Windows. Those diagnostics generally offer a full surface check if you want to take the time to do that. A surface check can take hours on a large drive, but I'd recommend it in your case.

If you have a Microsoft Windows XP disc (not a Dell restore disc) you might try a repair install. Details are here. (I've never used this page, so I can't recommend it. But references to it are often seen on MG's pages.)