How to fix my boot sector - No Cd (XP)

[H6CJF]

As above really... My laptop drive packed up recently. As a temporary fix I swapped in an old spare from another ancient laptop (4Gb would you believe!) and fitted the original HD into a USB caddy which enables me to access all the data etc.

I understand that the XP installation disc has the recovery console stuff on it but unfortunately that went to Uni with my son and has never been seen since! it possible to fix the boot sector any other way given that I have XP running ok on the laptop and I can access the original hard drive via the caddy? (not sure if the same disc was used to install on both drives btw)

Any advice gratefully received

Chris

[The_Jackal]

What do you actually mean when you say it "packed up".
Do you know it is just the boot sector that is corrupt?

Are you trying to just get back to running xp on your original disk?
If it is a simple master boot record fix then you can download CDs that you can boot from and run those type of repairs.

If you can copy off any important files, a reinstall may be the best bet.

[H6CJF]

Sorry I guess that was a bit vague... when booting it doesn't 'see' the drive. if I hit F2 on start up it says primary IDE disabled..

My aim is to reinstate the drive back into the machine as was. The 4Gb drive I'm using at the moment can't handle anything at all and although the other one want huge by todays standards it is at least 10 time bigger!

Unfortunately I dont have anything big enough to transfer the data to and in any case, without the CD a re-install is out of the question.

I was rather hoping I could run something on the 'working' drive to repair the boot sector on the old one which currently works as drive E?

Edited to answer all the questions rather than just the first!

Chris

Edited by H6CJF on Thursday 11th February 13:27

[twinturboz]

Download the following and burn to cd then boot with it. Its the xp recovery console but without any of the o/s. You should then be able to use the tools to fix the boot sector

http://www.thecomputerparamedic.com/files/rc.iso

[H6CJF]

Thanks for that.. will dig out a blank disc and give it a go

[twinturboz]

No problem, let us know how you get on

[buggalugs]

H6CJF said:

Sorry I guess that was a bit vague... when booting it doesn't 'see' the drive. if I hit F2 on start up it says primary IDE disabled..

Don't think you're going to get anywhere till you sort this out - the bios needs to see the disk before it can care about the boot sector. I'd take it out again and make sure there are no bent pins, its in the right way round etc. and go from there. Also make sure it's not just a case of changing the primary ide back to enabled.