Repairing a drive without an installation?
Posted: 11-01-2006, 07:33 AM
I currently have a hard drive that likely has some goof with the file
allocation table. I've been through virtually every convoluted process I've
found on Google.
Right now the drive in question is an NTFS formatted ATA drive on a WinXP
install. Nothing terribly fancy.
Rather than get into the problem, I'll try and make this simple. I was told
by a reliable source that the Vista "CHKDSK" is much better than anything
else out there - and especially considering that the XP Recovery Console is
not an option, I'm mighty eager to try it out. I know the drive works, as
when I boot from a Linux live CD I can access it, both read and write.
However, the Linux community really doesn't offer anything (that I've found)
capable of really cleaning up an NTFS volume.
However, I have no clue if it's possible to "repair" the disk without
installing Vista - and I'm not sure I'm ready to make that sort of leap,
especially if it'd be installing to a drive that's currently in a dodgy state.
Is there any way to repair the drive without installing Vista?
I clicked "repair computer" (forgive me if my paraphrasing is off, the
installation is running at what feels like 1mHz, so I'm not about to go back
and forth that much), and that brings up "System recovery options" - "select
an operating system to repair and click Next". "Only Windows Vista systems
are listed and can be repaired" - however, "Windows Vista systems" is a bit
ambigious, and I figured that, as a beta,, the language may be off a bit.
The box beneath it is blank, but it does give me an option to "load
drivers".
Assuming that I'm not just being overly optimistic, should I try anything
from here? Or am I wasting my time?
Thanks in advance for any help!



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