my Compaq Presario Notebook V5000 got "MBR error" (no number) at boot. After that it would just sit there and do nothing. I booted from Windows ME CD and did fdisk /mbr and everything seemed fine. Except .... Now it takes almost 10 minutes to boot (until I can see the 'Start'). I reacts extremely slow to any command (click on 'Start' and I wait for 2 minutes to actually any change). I had to reseat RAM a month ago 'cause it would noot boot at all. Any help would be appreciated.

Nothing must be running during CHKDSK, try it this way. Will take at least 2 hrs. Windows XP - Running Checkdisk from a Boot CD http://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.ph... Good info here as well. http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-11... http://www.updatexp.com/windows-xp-... http://www.schrockinnovations.com/c... CHKDSK /P fixes 95% of all Windows XP boot problems in my experience. It is run from the Recovery Console as described in some of the other steps. Run CHKDSK /P first, then reboot and hope for Windows. If it blue screens again, go back into the Recovery Console and try the "in place upgrade" as described. If you find there is no OS found to "upgrade", reboot, back into the recovery console, and then run BOOTCFG /ADD or /REBUILD, and name the XP install if found. If BOOTCFG /REBUILD wont finish, slave the hard drive in another system and run a full disk check from within Windows. After all 5 tests complete, backup your data just in case, and reinstall HDD in the original PC. Go through the original steps again that I mentioned and oftentimes the XP install will show up for the "in place upgrade". If no luck, well you just backed up, so blow it out and start over. Trust me, this is the way to go. The CHKDSK /P command is diagnostic only...it performs and exhuastive check of the drive, but does not make any changes to the drive. In otherwords, it doesn't fix anything. Now, on the other hand, the CHKDSK /P /R will locate bad sectors and recover readable information. Another possible. Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ http://windowsxp.mvps.org/peboot.htm Boot from the CD and chkdsk your HD manually.

Also, connecting to HD using Disk Management takes about 4-5 minutes.

Thank you Johnw. I tried chkdsk and it found nothing. I also tried TestDisk and it found an error on cylinder 64<some thousand> but did not dare do anything more since I made no backups yet. Also tried uninstalling HD. The weird thing is that I can boot but it just takes forever for the HD to serve data it seems. I'll try the recovery console if I ever find my 're-frakking-covery CD'. I'm this close to just reinstalling Windoze. If there was not for Command and Conquer I'd switch to BDS !!!

- Reinstalled Windows - Installation disk told me I had no hard drive. Used KillDisk to kill it. Used FDISK from Windows ME disk found at AllBootDisks.com. Reformated HD at installation. It's all working now. Partition was messed up bad and FIXMBR repaired some but no all of it.