Ok, a few days ago my computer was giving me problems so I decided to scandisk. When the computer started up after the scandisk, safemode told me that c:/ was unformatted. Not sure if this was good or bad, but I restarted and since then I couldn't boot windows . So, I've been reading up and all and I think I have to repair instal xp, but I wanted to know, before if UBCD4Win will allow me to read c:\ at all with what happened when safe mode was saying c:\ was unformatted and all. Also, any tips so that I don't end up messing my computer up more then it already is? I'm planning to run UBCD4Win to get all important data off somehow (hopefully it burns cds) and, if repair install is the way to go, will repair install. Just asking for tips, warnings, suggestions, comments before I go through with this. Thanks in advance.

This is a rather strange post.

If your C: drive was unformated (assuming this is the boot partition) how did you get to "safe mode"?

Sounds like the MBR has been corrupted somehow.

What OS is installed on the PC giving you this error? & have you done any re-aranging
of drives that could have affected the drive letter assignment?
Add any new hardware? or change a BIOS setting??

UBCD4WIN has a program called "Testdisk" that will probobly be where you want to start.
You might be able to recover the partition if it was lost due to an mbr error.

As far as using the xp setup recovery mode, try booting to the "Recovery Console" first & typing...

FIXMBR
FIXBOOT

These normally get the system back up & after you reboot the first time I would press f8
& choose "Last known good configuration" to rule out a configuration problem.

All of this is assuming that the data is still on the HD, so check your configuration & run TESTDISK first.

Before using fixboot or fixmbr read the following:

MS Fixmbr

FixBoot
Recovery Console

How to use the recovery console

Before I scheduled the scandisk, I set windows to restart in safe mode. I'm not sure how it happened, but safe mode was able to start but it said c:\ was unformatted. I just got UBCD4WIN built so I'll be sure to testdisk. I haven't done anything new lately, no new hardware or software. I'll be sure to tell you how it goes. Was mainly wondering if anyone ran into this problem with c:\ getting unformatted some how ( bte I only have one partition, been meaning to divide the HDD up into more partitions but this happened), and trying to avoid losing my data. Thanks for the links stidyup.

Ok, I'm back on my computer (yay). Testdisk didn't work, and neither did mbrfix. I ended up using chkdsk , and it fixed whatever messed up before, but booting is a bit slower now. Fixboot and Fixmbr didn't work at all, and chkdsk didn't work from the recovery console. Think I'll go run some of those diagnostic programs.

Sounds like you may have bad sectors on your hdd.

Most manufacturers have hdd diagnosis utilities to test the drive.

Seagate's Seatools will run on any drive:

Seatools Online

Seatools Desktop will give you either a bootable floppy or CD ISO which can be burned on to CD.

HDD Regenerator is $60 which can repair certain bad sectors on the disk, there is a demo version so you can at least check if may be successful at repairing the drive. However this can also be done for free by zero wiping (this may take several wipes) the drive but this means you will lose your data where as hdd regenerator can achieve this without being destructive.

Turns out I do have bad sectors on my computer. Thanks stidyup, I'll be sure to try and buy HDD regenerator; last thing I want to do is wipe my drive right now. One more question, UBCD4WIN doesn't get back to PE any more, it just keeps trying to install windows; anything I can do to get back to the preinstall enviroment?