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>"Repair" on the XP CD basically repairs your installation of XP (usually in C:\Windows). It won't touch E:.

I'm not thinking of it touching E:. Rather, to fix some component that maybe has gone bad (yet still looks OK). I'm assuming that SAFE MODE and normal operation obviously use different components to access HDs and that the regular one is gone flakey.

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>Is there any indication your drive is failing? Messages in the System Event Log? Errors reported with Scandisk (try surface scan option) or chkdsk /f? You might Google the make/model of the HD to see if anyone's reporting a higher-than-expected problem or failure rate.

Nothing evident in the event log. CHKDSK ran in SAFE MODE and corrected a couple of file problems (strictly user stuff, deep in subdirs). Trying CHKDSK in regular mode produces nothing - it just sits there (will check the Event Log in a while).
I'll do a search, but it is a 10,000rpm HD (not SCSI) with a 5yr warranty. And it is fine under SAFE MODE.

Thanks Al.


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