Hardware Issues / Backing up data

[Pat Fairbank]

If you run a ScanDisk you might be able to salvage your Windows partition enough to be able to boot into it.

Boot from your XP install disk if you have one and start the Recovery Console, then run CHKDSK. Of course, this might not do anything if there is indeed an "Uncorrectable data error" like the Dell diagnostics are telling you.

A similar problem happened to my team's programming laptop in Atlanta this year - we couldn't boot into Windows or Safe Mode due to a corrupted system file, and therefore had no access to the robot code. It took me the better part of Thursday to fix this, since the hard disk needed special SATA RAID drivers to be loaded in order to run the Recovery Console, and I had to track down a USB floppy drive and an internet connection to get them.

Good luck with your data recovery!