Can not boot to windows

Since you're planning on getting another hdd anyway, go ahead and get it. Master it into your machine and set your current hdd up as a slave. Load your OS and apps on the new hdd. You can retrieve the data you don't want to lose off the old slaved hdd.
Hope this helps. Good Luck!

My best suggestion, is to install the drive as a slave in another PC, and back up the data files.

Then, you need to re-partition, and format the drive to clear out the damaged clusters.
WARNING! Partitioning, and formatting the drive will erase all files on the drive.

Alternately, you might consider replacing the drive, as lost clusters are often a sign of the drive failing.

Then, install Windows.
Install device drivers.
Install Windows updates.
Install your application programs.
Copy your archived data back onto the drive.

As to Ghost, you need to run Ghost before your system crashes in order to have an image of the drive to restore from.

VXD problems are often a sign of memory problems.
Either loose DIMMs.
Incompatable DIMMs.
Memory failures.
So, you might want to check your memory before re-installing Windows.

Chas

Hindsite:

Nowdays with the way things are my first question would have been did you scan for viruses using lastest DAT file? If anything unusual starts happening this is where I begin.

The only time I've seen the message about already having an OS is because it's a full version booted up using the setup floppy disk.

Anytime there's a concern that the drive may be having problems it's time to get a copy of it. Running scandisk and norton utilities may only make things worse. If there's possibly one last read from a bad sector or cluster I want to be copying to another location.

Don't format this drive. Your problems can be fixed. Yes it may be time consuming but is the data worth it.

The lost clusters probably contained the files Windows boot up is asking for. If you selected to save the lost clusters as files they will be named file0000.chk, file0001.chk and so on. If it's directories they will be named dir00001.chk. These are stored on the root of the C: drive.
I wouldn't install the drive into another working system unless your going to scan it for viruses.

If you're going to give up on this drive, as mentioned use another drive and install windows there. Then data files can be used and copied from the original.

You can try ghosting it to another drive. If it runs without errors then yes that would be a good way to have a duplicate of the drive. Maybe not usable as a bootable drive but the files would be there. There's a file called switches.txt that's included with ghost it explains how to use it. Open it with DOS edit. The program is very easy to use and you just need to follow the prompts and NO mistakes about source and destination drive.

1. check each of the 2 sdrams(if you have 2) by using only one at a time. if you have only one, replace it. i have seen a similar problem on a pentium III of a customer.
2. then the pc will start to a certain degree or completely, if not start windows-setup again. if not possible one could rename win.com(in dos using bootdisk) into win.cim or ending after win. whatever you like.
then you can make the setup. be aware: if your cd is broke(scratches etc) you will need a good copy.

i use winme because of its genious recovery-system. using norton system works regularly helped me a lot(i do pc-recycling).
3. tip of buying a new hd is the best solution. maybe you will buy winme too. i love it. after repairing the old drive by using gwscan.exe(packed in an other file(gateway2000.com) you can use this drive for the ghost image of the windows partition and for copies of your data. gwscan will zerolevel format the drive. dont forget to make a partition. and format. otherwise setup does not work. btw: if you zerolevel a harddrive and use ghost to make a copy of your harddrive you do not need to make this procedures.if you have partition magic you can make decisions how many partitions you need later after windows has been installed. this is easy but using ghost needs some skill to understand.

My suggestion is also like the others, it sounds like the HDD is failing and that's why you're losing clusters, the bad thing is that those clusters may contain some of your data in them but the best thing at this poit is to slave the bad HDD and try to retrieve as much of your data as you can and remember that is always a good idea to have back ups of your important data on an external device or a second HDD if possible.
Good Luck

If you can, back any date and format your hd. If there are no problems formatting then you hd should be ok. Just use this as a slave for storage and use your new hd as the master. Attempting to have an OS on both drives will result in a message telling you one "operating system is already running" at boot up. Lost clusters usually are associated with viruses or caused by shutting down your system after each use causing electric surges that could eventually damage your hard drive if not already. Let your system run 24/7 unless you dont use your system daily. Good Luck

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