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July 4th, 2024 11:34
Windows XP MBR repair
So I have an old Dell with Windows XP and the MBR has failed. Diagnostics all pass until it does the read test on the hard drive where it fails immediately. I have some a Windows 10 system but prefer the XP so I have some data on the XP system I would like to retrieve. Unfortunately, Dell did not give me a disk with the OS on it, rather they gave me a cardboard disk saying I could use the system restore function, which is useless if you can't boot.
Recovery/Repair disks claim to be able to fix MBR but I am skeptical.
I was thinking of getting a new hard drive and a reinstallation CD for XP and making the original hard drive a secondary disk to retrieve the data. Unfortunately Dell didn't include a product key with the stupid cardboard disk.
Any suggestions?
ejn63
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July 4th, 2024 12:15
If you have another system, you do not need to rebuild this one. Simply remove the hard drive from the system, mount it in an external drive case and attach it to a system running Windows XP or higher -- copy what you need to that system.
Any Windows 7, Vista, 8, 10 or 11 system will read the data.