T61 hard drive crashed due to Windows Updates [ Edited ]

[Chris22]

I posted in this forum a few months back about my hard drive crashing as a result of a windows update.  I can't find the the thread and it really contained some useful advice/instructions on steps I could take to troubleshoot and fix my problem.  If there is no way to restore the drive, I basically want to get the data off of that hard drive.  I don't know if I will be able to recover any of the software (which is depressing), but at least the data on the drive.  Is there any way to do this?  If so, could you post the steps?  BTW, I know NOTHING about how to do this, I'm a front-end coder.  Never built or done any serious trouble-shooting of a PC. 

(was) running Windows XP

thanks!

chris

[goretsky Community Moderator]

Hello,

I wonder if the file system on the hard disk drive migth have some corruption which is preventing it from booting up as it normally should. 

See if you can boot the computer in Safe Mode with Command Prompt by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as it powers up.  From there, try running CHKDSK C: /F /R command (which may require a reboot and will likely take some time) and see if that fixes the issue.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Chris22]

didn't originally post the question on this site.

thanks goretsky, I'll try that and let you know the results.