Boot Disk Failure. Insert System Disk....

That sounds very much like the Hard Drive has failed, mechanically that is.

The proof of the pudding would be to verify that boot CD on a healthy system but it doesn't look good at this point.

 

So much for insisting on Maxtor.

Thanks for all your help. I'll take it in to the shop where I bought it and see if they can try slaving it. If not I guess I'm paying big bucks for recovery.

 

PLansdowne

Before you take it to the shop you can try Knoppix or if you have a spare drive 1 to 4 gigs and up or you could over write 95.You can install XP on it {I have run xp on 16megs Ram and a 133 mghertz } then you can slave it youself I can tell you how to get xp down to around 900 Megs < than 1 Gig.. really bare bones..
purplemtn

 

Or alternatively, put in another disk and make it master, put XP on it with other drive cables disconnected, then rejumper old drive as slave or CS and reconnect it.

 

Well I brought the drive into the shop, they slaved it and windows wouldn't recognize it (bios picked it up but not windows). The drive was pooched. Their data recovery software could see files on the drive so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed right now that it's able to recover what I need and that I haven't lost too much.

Thanks everyone for all your help. You're the best!!

 

Thanks for the report and best luck with the recovery.