I have an old Campaq Armada E500 laptop computer. I am in the process of upgrading - buying another laptop. I had backed up about 50% of what I needed - when the old Compaq died. It is running Windows XP Pro (SP 2).

When I say died - it refuses to boot up:

1st message: boot.ini missing Booting from Windows.

2nd message: config.sys corrupted. Possible corrupt registry files. Unable to start Windows. To use the Repair Console, press 'r'

I tried that without success. Then I considered reinstalling Windows - and losing My Documents and My Bookmarks. I booted the laptop using the Windows XP Pro disk - decided to reinstall Windows - and everything was fine until it got to 17% - the file drivers.cab - which it couldn't find.

I hit Enter to retry - without success. Then most of the remaining files couldn't be found either. I had to hit F3 twice to abort the procedure.

I really want to get the files off the laptop. Is it possible to remove the laptop's hard-drive and copy files to an external source?

Peter

Assuming the drive itself hasn't died you should be able to drop it in an external 2.5" drive box and get your data.

Boxes run at 2-300 Baht

EDIT I hope you didn't let Windows format your drive when you attempted the re-install, this would make life a whole lot more interesting

First thing I would do, is remove the old drive, and purchase new one.

Get windows xp again (in any way you deem fit )

then purchase what crossy suggests, an external drive case, replete with usb (2?) cable,

Then we can continue to help.

Thanks for your help so far, people. I will get organised tomorrow (Monday) morning when my local computer shop is open and report back.

Peter