Hello - I have XP (Home) installed on a new hard disk in a borrowed machine. My old PC fell over - another long story - and I wondered if I can rescue my files from the old PC by running this HD as a slave? Does this sound sensible?

If not, I cannot repair XP on this old disk by the Restore console as the administrator password is not known to me. Is there another way round this problem?

Anyhelp greatly appreciated!

BigFeet

I have a problem that appeared out of the blue when first switching on. Booting up hangs after the POST checks and a black screen with flashing cursor in the top left part of the screen is all that I get.

Booting from CD is marginally better - at the point of btkrnl.sys the machine hangs and starts to reboot in a cycle. I can't attempt to restore the XP as I have never had an administration passowrd and a blank entry isn't being accepted. Is there a way round this?

I have checked all obvious connections, RAM seating etc., and have now got to the point od being seriously lost. I am currently running a borrowed PC with a new HD but would dearly love to copy my files from my old HD - if they aren't corrupted.

Any advice really apreciated!
BigFeet

Yes you should have access to data running it as a slave. If you get access denied errors see this page:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

If you are talking about the "Recovery Console" asking for a password: if none was set then just press Enter. The Recovery Console is very limited. If you want to Repair Install XP then do not press the first "R" which is the Recovery Console but choose "Setup XP" then take the second "R" for Repair or Upgrade.

Thanks Jephree - I'll give the slave set-up a go. As for the password, something (unknown to me) must have been entered at some point as a blank response gets rejected. Actually I mnay have gone for the first "R" and not as you suggest going through the setup option first. I'll have another go and report.

Thanks again.

BigFeet