[JT Cole]

I recently suffered an apparent corruption of my primary SATA hd that caused me to be unable to boot into regular or safe mode. This drive was running my XP Media Center edition. I have data I need on this drive so I grabbed the only OS disc I had available (Vista Home Premium) and installed it on a secondary IDE drive that was already in the machine. I was hoping to be able to get to the drive through Vista and rescue the files I need then do a clean install on the SATA drive. The problem is, any time I even attach this drive my system fails to boot. The system just hangs on a black screen at startup. Is it possible for a drive to be so corrupted that it will not allow a system to boot FROM A SEPARATE HARD DRIVE?

System specs:
Dell XPS 400 2.8 GHz dual core CPU 3 GB RAM one 80 GB SATA drive and one 250 GB IDE HD
(originally) XP Media Center Edition on 80 GB SATA HD
(after problem) Vista Home Premium on the 250 GB IDE HD

I also installed Windows 7 RC on the other partition of the IDE because I hate Vista (that should be irrelevant to this problem though, I think)

edit: Also, I tried a Ctrl + F11 system restore on the SATA drive at one point but received an error that I interpreted as meaning the drive was corrupted... or something to that effect

[lawson_jl]

Yes it is certainly possible for any piece of bad hardware to prevent a system to boot. If the data is really important to you then you will have to seek out a proffesional drive recovery service.

[dustyjay]

Try installing the Sata Drive in an external hdd enclosure. Boot the system then connect the now external drive via USB. May Work.

[JT Cole]

Thanks for both of those responses. I actually had thought about an external enclosure, but I wasn't sure if that was likely to do anything different. I think I'll give that a try. If that doesn't work I'll have to decide how important this data is.... that and start backing up more regularly -sigh- THanks again and I will update if this worked or not

[Elvandil]

How did you get Vista installed in the first place if the other drive would not boot? There are several reboots involved in installation. If you installed Vista on another machine, that drive will not boot. You need to install it in the machine it will run on.

How did you determine originally that the SATA was "corrupted" and corrupted in what way?

[Hughv]

Check your boot order and make sure thePATA drive is first.