Quick Tip

I had this problem recently, I was away on vacation when I got a call from my dad saying my Dell XPS 600 wouldn't boot. At the time - that computer contained ALL my data. When I got home - I was devastated that it wouldnt boot past the loading Windows Screen.

I attempted the hard drive on another Dell Computer (due to my current custom rig not working yet) and it wouldnt access the drive. Now I was almost near tears. I had backed up my computer before about a month ago but sadly alot more was added onto the HD. Connecting to another computer and it couldn't access that HD meant that it wasn't a Windows screw up but something with the HD integrity.

I booted from my Windows disc and into recovery console. I attempted fixboot and fixmbr to only come up with nothing, again due to the fact that it had nothing to do with Windows. I attempted chkdsk and it quickly stopped and said ''cannot repair or recover from one or more crucial errors''

My last hope was Knoppix, a boot up Linux DVD. Here is how I fixed this and hopefully you can use this one day too.

-http://www.knoppix.net - Knoppix Download
-Download whichever preferable - Bittorrent or mirror.
-MAKE SURE U GET THE ENGLISH DVD VERSION
-Use something like Nero to burn ISO to DVD.
-Boot from DVD
-Once onto the Linux desktop, go into the Termination Console found at the bootom of your screen.
-Right click on your hardrive on the desktop and then properties. There you should see something like devsata/he2 or something. That is your hardrive path.
-Type ''ntfsfix pathofdrivehere''
-Shutdown from Linux and enter Windows Recovery Console
-Type fixboot, then boot to Windows
-IF YOU CANNOT STILL BOOT TO WINDOWS - type fixmbr, beware this could delete data from your Hardrive. It has yet come onto me but it's possible.

The problem is that the NTFS structure of the hard drive can be corrupted and this is what happened to me. How do you know if this has happened to you? Well, you hook the hard drive up to another computer and see if you can access it on another hard drive boot from Windows or Linux. If you can't try another computer then boot into Windows Recovery Console and type chkdsk. If it comes up with the same error I did then boot from Knoppix and see if you can ''mount'' the drive, if you get an error that you cannot that most likely means your NTFS structure is damaged.