Bootable section of HD possibly damaged

[rdy4trvl]

My hard drive died (cannont reinstall [repair] XP, computer screen goes blank when booting, but passes all of the extensive Dell diagnostic tests, I've replaced cables, changed hard drive positions, etc...) and I suspect it may be due to damage to the bootable section of HD. If this is the case, is there any way to repair/recover the data on the drive?
Thanks

 

[edfair]

You probably could slave it to another drive or put it in another IDE channel and get it recognized and the data off.
It depends on whether the problems are in the boot sector, partition table, or directory structure.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[rdy4trvl]

Ed,
Thanks for the suggestion. I've already tried it as a slave to the new drive but during start up, once the system locates the "damaged" drive the screen turns black and nothing else happens (same results no matter where or how I've been able to connect this drive).
Doug

 

[edfair]

With everything passing diagnostics I would start to suspect viral infection. At the risk of blowing the drive up I would try a fdisk /mbr and see what a new master boot record would do, assuming of course that you can even get it to write on the drive. That may upchuck it far enough that the OS recovery could start.
The last couple I've seen required a zero fill to make the drives usable again.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.