How to Test a Computer's Hard Drive When it Will Not Boot

Having a computer that refuses to boot often signifies a problem with the hard drive. When the computer is unable to boot from the drive itself, you must help it on its way with a "boot disk"--a disk containing the required files to boot to the MS-DOS operating system. Once you have that, you will be able to run a simple utility called Checkdisk, enabling you to troubleshoot and potentially fix your drive problems.

Things You'll Need

• MS-DOS boot disk
• blank floppy disk

Instructions

1. Download the free "Checkdisk" program for MS-DOS from the www.freedos.org website and save it to a blank floppy disk.

2. Insert the MS-DOS boot disk into the computer and start the machine.

3. Press any key when indicated to boot from the disk, which will take you to a command line prompt in MS-DOS

4. Insert the disk containing the "Checkdisk" program.

5. Type in "X:" and press "Enter" (in this case, "X" is the drive letter of your floppy disk drive).

6. Type in "chkdsk X: /f" and press "Enter" (in this case, "X" is the drive letter of your floppy disk drive). This will initiate the automated disk checking procedure. Checkdisk will thereafter fix any problems that can be repaired on the hard drive.

References

• Microsoft: Checkdisk

Resources

• FreeDOS: Checkdisk