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Is there a way to check an OS install on an external disk?

Locked Is there a way to check an OS install on an external disk?

  • Tuesday, August 24, 2010 8:36 PM
     
     
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    I have XP installed on a hard drive that will not boot.  The disk is not dead, but it will not boot to XP.  I want to put the drive in an external enclosure and check to the XP installation to determine if all of the necessary files are on the drive.  If the scan can determine if the XP files are corrupted or missing that is a plus.  The PC that I am attaching the external hard drive to is running Win 7.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.
       

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    • Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:49 AM
       
       
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      What is the exact error you are facing while booting up?

         
      • Wednesday, August 25, 2010 10:42 PM
         
         
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        That is the problem.  The disk is not booting. I was missing the pci.sys file.  I have since corrected the problem and the machine boots, but that caused me to raise the question.  What if I couldn't boot?  How could I find out if the disk had all of the necessary files without booting it up?

        Is there a way to take that system drive that is not booting and check it by plugging it in as an external drive, and then scanning it to determine if 1) all of the files are present and 2) if they are not all present, which files are missing?

        I was just wondering if there is a utility to do that.  I suppose, if I had a complete listing of the files in say an Excel spreadsheet, I could write a VB script to compare the list against the contents of the drive in question.  What do you think?