I built my own system and i'm kinda stymied. This is definitely a hard disk issue. Originally built the system with a 40gig Maxtor in 2000 and replaced it with a 200 gig Maxtor ATA133 about 3 years ago. Worked fine for years, then started slowing down some. Finally stopped booting one day. The windows loading screen comes on, then the pc reboots. Gives me an option to restart with safe mode or normally - nothing works.
Reinstalled the original 40 gig hd and everythings fine. Friend suggested getting an external hd enclosure, and transferring the data from there.
However, I go to computer management, select the generic usb storage, right click, select inventory, and there are no items to show in this view. Removable storage says the same thing. The enclosure is nice and warm right now so apparently there is nothing mechanical wrong. From what I've gleaned from other sites, I'm getting a BSOD during boot up and windows constantly reboots because of it.
Don't want to format, got pics of my dad who passed away in July, and of his house. Please help

Hook it up as a slave to the 40 gig drive and back up those important files, Also run a scandisk or checkdisk on that drive see if it has bad sectors. If thats the case then some of those files may be corrupt, wont know till you transfer them over and try to open them though.

Thank you so very much. I had a long wait trying to get the pc to boot with the second disk in it, but it eventually did. Was able to get what I needed with file scavenger, but turned out I could repair the hard drive anyway. Guess all I needed was a little patience and some sound advice.

Thanks - Bob

Good (and proper) advice Joe.

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