Hard drive repair

I need a program to repair a Toshiba 40GB hard drive a program that is
bootable

The hard drive is out of a Gateway M305CRV with 512 or ram

When XP starts it go to the screen safe mode safe mode with networking
safe mode command prompt last known good configaration and
start windows normally
I tried all of these no luck, tried all of the F8 settings same thing I get so
far and the blue screen appears telling me to repair or replace this drive

Thank,s in advance

 

I'll take you at your word when you say you want to repair a HDD rather than recover data from one. The problem with the boot CDs I've tried is that they consist mostly of diagnostic tests to tell you just how F***ed your drive is, but not so much in the repair department. If your problem is with disk partitions, MBR, CMOS/BIOS, or viral infection then pretty much any of them will deliver. What most seem to be missing is a good chkdsk replacement for fixing sector damage (I guess they assume that every user has a bootable OS repair disk for that purpose). I've monkeyed around with so many boot CDs that I can no longer keep them straight and my note-keeping is atrocious. However, I did find one lately with an acceptable chkdsk type app. Problem is.... I don't remember exactly which one it was. At the risk of stressing you out even more than you probably already are, here are some suggestions:

Ultimate Boot CD v5.x: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
UBCD4Win: http://www.ubcd4win.com/contents.htm
Falcon Four UBCD: http://falconfour.com/projects/7
Puppy Linux: http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/puppy-5.2.8/
Hiren's Boot CD: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Sorry man, I wish I could be more helpful. It's late but I'll try tomorrow to boot each one and maybe get you the right one. Check out the above links. I think they all have a page listing the apps on their boot CD.

 

You are right I want to repair the HDD
I,ll check those,s out and see if that,s what I need

I think sector damage is my problem
I tried XP disc repair console ran it for over and hour same blue screen

I,ll get back to ya later

 

Forget about UBCD v5.x
Forget about Linux Puppy
Neither of them have what you're looking for.

Try Falcon 4 UBCD: http://falconfour.com/projects/7
You'll need to Torrent this one. If you don't have a Torrent client, this one is as good as any: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/bittorrent.html
Download Torrent script from the above website
Download the ISO file
Burn ISO to CD. If you don't have a CD Burning app, this one is as good as any for simple burns: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/cdburnerxp.html
Put CD in drive and reboot.
Boot into "MiniXP" environment
Don't mean to insult you if you already how to do this stuff but I try not to assume anything when it comes to computing. If you run into any snags or have any questions, please let me know.

MiniXP is........ yup, a mini version of XP. You can run chkdsk from a DOS box. Not sure if it's any different from running chkdsk from XP repair disk but I hope so.

I'll keep looking through my boot CDs to see if I can find a chkdsk equivalent and I'll keep you posted. BTW, how do you know you have bad disk sectors as the cause of your unbootable system? You never made that clear. Are you sure it's not something like a trashed MBR (which would be easy enough to fix) or a lost partition table?

 

I,m not sure if it is a bad sector or trashed MBR just grasping straws here
Had to turn off antivirus to download bittorrent I,ll try Falconfour and get back
ya

Would it help if I just reinstall XP I have 3 XP discs sp1,2,3 or should I try Vista
home basic? Not sure if 512 or ram is enough for Vista

 

OK, then we should check your partitions and MBR. I'm pretty sure we can do that with the Falcon Four boot CD, but I'll check it out and make sure.

You can be almost certain that any AV hit on a file downloaded from MG site is a false positive. If you want to get a second opinion (48 of them to be exact), you can upload suspect files to VirusTotal.com online scanner and scan the file immediately with 48 different antivirus scanners. Only takes a minute or two. Best means I know of for identifying false positives.

512 is the bare minimum for a Vista install, but that doesn't take into account the programs that you're going to run on it. So, in practice, that's really not a feasible option for you unless you added memory. Reinstalling XP would fix pretty much any problem other than a failing or failed HDD (which is entirely likely if your drive is older than 5 - 6 years), but you'll want to rule out the fixable causes before you resort to that. You can also attempt to recover data from the drive before reinstalling your OS. You'd need another drive to do that, such as an external HDD. If it's not more than a dozen or so GBs you could recover to a USB flash drive (one of those thumb sized memory devices for USB port, also called a thumb drive, a memory stick, and god knows what else). If, however, you don't care about losing your personal files or you have them backed up on another drive, you could dispense with the diagnosis/repair phase and go straight to reinstalling. Your call.

 

Falconfour did something right i,m typing this on the Gateway

All this laptop is for a backup in case my Toshiba A135 with Win 7
goes down. to download a driver or what ever my Toshiba needs.

I,m going to check for updates now install them and turn it off

Thank,s rustysavage

 

Awesome! I'm glad you didn't have to reinstall XP. Couple of easy things you can do to check/repair your system.
Click Start Button >> Run to open RUN box and type:
sfc /scannow
Press Enter
This scans your system for missing or corrupt system files and attempts to repair/replace them. Note that there's a space between "sfc" and "/scannow"

If you didn't run chkdsk from the boot CD then you should do that as well.
Open the RUN box again and type:
chkdsk /r
Press Enter (note that there's a space between "chkdsk" and "/r")
Windows will inform you that:

Press [Y] then Enter.

The next time you boot the computer chkdsk will check your disk for errors and attempt to repair them. Depending on the size of drive, the scan can take several hours.