My hard disk is knackered cannot boot it up to safe made says that the disk is bad .Am told it is probably done but that i can rescue some of my data if i use it as a slave drive to another ecomputer ...how do i do this any idea or any idea of how i can get to safe mode?
any help welcome

jim

F8 after BIOS POST = Safe Mode Options.
What is the exact error you get? Does the BIOS recognise your drive?

To slave it you need to remove it; set the jumper to slave; install it on the middle/ grey plug on another computer. (Or Cable Select if the other computer Master is set to Cable Select).

You will then be able to access the data by reading it from the Master drive.

Tanks Jef ..No it dose not recognise the drive ..wil put it bac on again to see the actual wording not very good on these things but i take it it is the spare cable in the coputer you attach it to ......does it automatical work or is there som strane weird hard things to do as well ?..
jim

I am not sure that I am following what you are doing. Were you getting a Disk Read Error?

Anyway I am not sure what you mean by spare cable. There are usually two flat ribbon cables. One for hard drives & one for DVD/CD drives.

These ribbons usually have 3 connectors:
1. Blue (end motherboard)
2. Grey (middle slave)
3. Black (end Master)

The hard drive also has "jumpers" on the back:
1. Master
2. slave
3. Cable Select

These are usually labeled on the drive.

If you are putting the old Master on another computer as a slave you only need to change that jumper from Master to slave.
The exception being if the Master on this other computer is set to Cable Select you would need to set both drives to Cable Select.

sorry for confusion .
re booted ysterday it and this is what it says pri master disks m a r t statusbad set up f11 boot f12 network fi to resume onl f1 works then it says searching for boot disc a

i did not have a boot disc loaded one i think from a website but when i put it in it did not seem to find it .
thanks again for taking the time to help

jim

If you know the make of the hard drive you can find a diagnostic from their site.

Here is a general list:

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

If the drive checks out OK you can try a Repair Install of XP by booting your XP CD & following the prompts:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q315341

If the drive is Not OK then you could try putting it in another computer as slave in order to try and extract the data.

These ribbons usually have 3 connectors:
1. Blue (end motherboard)
2. Grey (middle slave)
3. Black (end Master)

The hard drive also has "jumpers" on the back:
1. Master
2. slave
3. Cable Select

These are usually labeled on the drive.

If you are putting the old Master on another computer as a slave you only need to change that jumper from Master to slave.
The exception being if the Master on this other computer is set to Cable Select you would need to set both drives to Cable Select.

will have a go thank you for all your help

jim