[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Appreciated.

It should have been mentioned that the computer uses Windows 2000 professional, and this is being typed on another computer--how can the computer be checked for viruses and chkdsk be run with the computer being nonfunctional?

Which leads to to the next point: it almost can't be emphasized enough that not an expert on computers, so if the instructions could be given as though you were typing to an idiot, that would be helpful.

[xcamel]

win2K pro has the same toolkit as xp, IIRC.

[farmguy]

OOPS, Didn’t see this. The Fixit fix I did was on an XP computer.

[DreamsofPolycarp]

One more thing. If you have access to the second machine, just change the jumpers on the bad drive to "slave" and boot from the good machine. You should be able to browse your files AND to transfer files to the bad drive AND to CHKDSK the bad drive that way. Again, I always prefer linux, but that is what I know. If you are not that familiar with it, then try hooking the drive up to a functioning machine. I fixed a drive that had the krnl file corrupted that way once. Finally, if a file IS corrupted, and you have your old W2k install disk, you can copy selected files over. Some windows head here can tell you how to "unzip" the windows cab files while leaving them archived (I have done this before but I can't remember the archiving tool you use. There are lots of shareware apps for this) and then copy the file over, and then add the last letter in the file. For example, if the corrupted file is abc.exe it will show up as abc.ex_ once it is "uncabbed" just copy it over and change the letter at the end (which is all windoze does when it is "installing").

I am sorry I am not more help. I remember this kind of stuff happening to me and I know it is not pleasant. Please feel free to question and I will try to help if I can.