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HELP PLEASE

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by lee.howard3

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i have a comp running xp pro. on start up it is asking for start up disk i know that if i do this it will renestall xp and i will lose all my stuff on hard drive. is there a tool i can use to get up n running again without losing my stuff on hard drive?

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by hal 9000

By following the directions here

http://tinyurl.com/6l9sm

But I don't think that this will cure your current problem as by the sounds of things the HDD is not being seen when you attempt to boot the system. I would suggest that you enter the BIOS and look at what is being seen before you proceed any further. If there is no HDD present them you have a problem with the hardware and it should be possible to recover your data off the HDD by fitting it to a USB Caddy and attaching it to another computer.

However if the BIOS is seeing the HDD but there is nothing presently on it you may have lost the MBR's to that HDD or it may have failed. To check this out you'll need to download the HDD Makers Diagnostic Utility and run that to see if the HDD is OK. Failing that you could use the Ultimate Boot CD to test the HDD and maybe fix it if it's still working that's available for download here

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

If the HDD comes up as dead you'll have to rely on your last Backup for all your data so unless you have performed daily incremental backup's you may loose some of your data but it shouldn't be anything too much.

Col

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