I have just enough knowledge to keep me going in circles for days. Here's my situation the best that I can explain it, and am probably doing something obvious(ly wrong) or just need to get a new computer....have researched but not sure enough about which area to research and not getting anywhere....

ANYWAY...
I have a desktop from my father's house, he died last Aug. Basically there is (or was) a primary partition and a second w/ a factory image/backup. I added a third between these 2, I guess to have one to use personally while going through things on my dad's drive looking for anything important to back up. Somewhere or somehow, not sure now, something went wrong, think it was something about disconnecting an internal cdrom drive w/ the power on, don't know why or how I would do this, and it seems that there were problems before this, or maybe it was after and took time to show up, but soon I could not boot from my C: drive any longer, it was corrupted. I recovered some files from it, and reformatted it. I also no longer can get any internal cdroms or dvd drives to work with it, and I can't seem to have any other hdd recognized either as a slave. Should toss it out, probably, but I really need the space/memory if possible, and can't afford anything else (have a laptop and am out of room. So I'm trying to do what I can w/ this.

There were apparently system files still being used on C:, and couldn't boot it after clearing it. Also, it seems there are bad sectors at the beginning of the drive. This is one part of my lack of knowledge: I thought you could use a hdd w/ bad sectors only from the first sectors to where the bad area is, but I was using the 2nd partition fine. I also was getting corrupted data messages from anything I put on the C: drive until I started it after leaving about 10gb unused at the beginning. (it is an 80gb drive).

Now I don't seem to be getting these messages, But don't quite know if/how this works. So as I couldn't figure out how to install xp w/out a cd drive, only a floppy drive but can't make xp boot floppies as I can't boot into this drive, I put the hdd into a usb enclosure and plugged it into my laptop. Am not sure what to do here, I used norton pm to reformat the cdrive (making the 10gb unused section after getting the corrupted data errors). I have tried installing Bartpe, peinst.cmd to the c: drive, to the 2nd partition which has xp on it, but is not bootable currently. At one point I got bartpe to start loading when I plug it back into my desktop, but it froze pretty quickly. Now I can't. Am I going about this completely wrong?

I was using an oem version of xp for the installation files, now using a retail version, also tried different things w/ boot.ini. I'm confused as to what to do about drive letters and boot.ini. As an enclosure the drive letters are different then what peinst.cmd option 5, than 2 sets it as. I've tried both ways, also wondering what happens if I put it in twice, one with the letter used in the enclosure, one while back in the desktop. Is the unused space in front causing issues?

Anyway, now I have the first partition, fat32, while set to active boot up w/ message of "non system disk". If it needs system files somehow, I don't know how to do this. I only have a 98 boot floppy, which doesn't help much. Don't know how to make another (for xp, non-dos, whatever) w/out being able to boot into anything on this computer. The 2nd partition is ntfs, which I can access with ntfs4dos.exe on a partition while using the 98 boot floppy. If I put that partition to active, I get a freeze on validating dmi pool, or whatever. I don't know enough to know what to do/try from here, don't want to give up yet. Any clue on what I'm missing, hoping desperatly there is some very obvious and simple answer??

Amy

Well you certainly have a good tittle for this thread... Too many things could be wrong.

First some questions:
Are you trying to fix this pc or just use the HD in an enclosure? (not sure which you meant)

What is the brand/model of the motherboard?

Have you ever built a pc before?

Do you have any first hand knowlege of how to setup hd ribbons/bios settings to ensure that these devices work?

A good place to start would be to remove all ribbon cables and extra devices and make sure they are propperly connected and setup in the bios. Some older BIOS require settings for each ide channel and also require manuale settings for cd-rom/optical drives.


Keep in mind that while you may use a HD that contains bad sectors, this is sort of like finding out you have cancer, which in short means that 1 sector turns into 20, then into 200... and soon the device will die all together or it will simply continue to work just fine for a very long time and there is no way of knowing which one will be true. Certainly trusting important data to a drive you know has bad sectors is the wrong approach.

This may also be helpfull:
http://www.allbootdisks.com/

Nice site.

Thanks, I have built pcs, or at least 'messed around' with them a lot. I have tested several ribbons, different cd roms and hard drives in different configurations, adjusted bios settings, The only thing I could get to work is the hard drive set as a master, no slaves will work, nothing will work on the secondary slot thing ???? (for a secondary master and slave.) ( slept one hour last night, no terminology beyond the 'whatchamacallit' is coming to mind.) Basically I'm trying to get it working to use in the desktop for storage over my home network, and basic stuff for my kids to use (internet and word basically) until I can get something else. But though I am worried about it totally failing before this happens, storage probably isn't a good idea. Duh.
i tend to break everything I get my hands on. Thank goodness my husband insisted on the accidental damage on my laptop....Had the hard drive, motherboard, and pretty much anything else replaced multiple times in a year....not sure what it is, maybe I was born with some weird electrical disturbance gene? Sorry, really need a nap...

Thanks for the sites, I guess at least I can try and get it to boot for my kids' stuff.

Oh the computer is some tiger something or other m7vig
pro board w/ amd athalon xp 2200 etc etc

thanks!!!
amy

One more question, I 'used to' know this, had it working great on my laptop, but can't remember anything now, couldn't find the info, though probably didn't try hard enough, or too tired, but what was the reason for or needing to use bartpe on/as an iso vs. installing it on the hard drive, and/or when using peinst.cmd, putting in source files and install to info, then hitting 5 to install, then having the option of 1 and 2 (2 being to add bartpe to the boot.ini, under what circumstances would you use the first option instead? If nothing is installed?