help required with NT

[megah0]

one of my colleagues work computers has decided that it does not want to play any more.

on booting it comes up with the error message Primary hard disk fail. press F1 to continue.

I do so and it says that there is a kernel file missing please insert system disk and hit any key.

I have tried booting from a floppy and also a knoppix CD to try and recover his files but nowt is working having set both of these devices to boot in the bios.

Am I missing anything?

[Stoo]

Knackered HDD?

[megah0]

i am coming to that conclusion

[petrefax]

HDD is probably not knackered, but his data is - this happens a lot where i work

we have NT, along with an unstable network, so a PC will occasionally lose its network connection whilst writing to a network drive, i *think* this then screws up the file allocation table (or whateve NT calls it) cos if you wipe the HDD & reinstall the OS it'll work fine so its not the HDD failing

unfortunately this don't help ur mate & his files on the HDD! sorry mate

[spikegifted]

Well, I suppose you can pull the hard disk out and hook it up to another rig and then run Norton Disk Doctor on it to recover any errors... right?