Quote Originally Posted by johner
I was running Windows XP on a Dell PC but Windows will not start up. The diagnostic CD provided with the PC identified an uncorrectable data error on one of the hard disk blocks. I have used Knoppix to copy all the files onto a USB portable drive. Is there any way I can use Knoppix to repair the hard disk by defragmenting or some other action?
Since you already have all your files backup to the USB drive. My recommendation is to use the Dell recovery disk to reinstall Windows xp.

During the recovering process, when asked, say yes to reformat the harddisk, it is a good idea to do it since formatting will fix the corrupted sectors and black-list the physical damaged one. (assuming you only have a few of them, if you have a lot, it will fail)

Also depends on where the "error block" is located, if it is located at the boot sector or the MBR, you may need to run the FIXBOOT and then follow by FIXMBR from the windows PE environment to fix it.

To me, whenever I need to fix the NTFS file system, I use Microsoft tools first.

If all fail, then you may want to use knoppix (or other Linux) as a last resort. Commands you may need to use are:

fdisk, mkfs.ntfs (if using FAT or FAT32, use mkfs.vfat)

Rgds,
Chip