Windows disobeyed a direct order, then – by accident – it fixed things up.
Here’s how it happened. To add to my woes, I started seeing hard-drive errors on DDS, so I went into the Bios and disabled the first 2 drives. This included the main C: drive with (corrupt) Windows on it.
I decided to boot Windows XP from CD and install Windows on another physical drive. During this process Windows found the original C:drive (yes, the one disabled in the bios) and proceed to run a chkdsk on it. It had ignored the fact the drive wasn’t supposed to be there and available.
And found errors on it and repaired them.
So after installing the new Windows on the other drive and testing it, I went back into the bios, re-enabled the other drivers and rebooted.
The original Windows came back up! First I went into Safe mode, then rebooted into standard mode. All data there.
Just to be sure I copied all the main data over to a spare drive. There was a lot more that I had first thought, including a stack of emails.
I then put on GAG, a Graphical Boot Manager. I was able to use it to find both Old and New Windows then add them to its Boot Menu. A final reboot and ta da! Windows x 2 both work.
Forgot to say that I checked the first 2 hard drives, which were playing up. One of them seemed to have its power cable half hanging out. Since pushing it back in, both drives have been fine for hours.
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