Not to long ago my Windows XP partition started blue screening on boot, I tried every F8 option practically (last known good config... everything), no luck... I had a linux partition on the box too with lilo installed, I tried to fixmbr and fixboot in the recovery console, no luck, it wouldn't even do a dir in it, I tried to do a XP Pro repair install but it said Unknown partition or disk or something of that nature, and wanted me to format the partition, what I don't get is I could still access the NTFS partition in Linux before i fixed the master boot record and all my files worked from what I saw, could someone please help me figure out a solution, its really annoying and I'd hate to backup 160gigs of data and reinstall everything.

Lance: one possibility at;

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=832577

more ideas at:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308041

also;
1. swap your RAM sticks.

2. the Master Boot Record (MBR) may have been corrupted by a virus or by a recent program install.

try to run a virus scan from Safe Mode or by using your antivirus boot disks.

and run the command: chkdsk c: /f

let us know what worked for you...

none of the above worked and I can't boot into anything, can't repair installation, it will not recognized that windows xp is already installed on the partition, tried chkdsk and it wont do it, who knows, I'm just going to backup to another hard drive and format the old one and reinstall, maybe I can ghost it or something.