TechRepublic provides excellent instructions on what to do if you’re having trouble booting Windows XP. It offers tips ranging from simple fixes like booting with the last known good configuration to using the recovery console to do some advanced stuff like fixing a corrupt Boot.ini file. This top 10 list is good info to hang onto in the case of an emergency (I recommend saving it somewhere other than on your main computer).

TechRepublic’s top 10 list did skip one important tip: CHKDSK /R. CHKDSK /R is a command available in the recovery console (as well as the Window’s normal cmd prompt) to recover/repair (that’s what the /R option does) any bad hard drive sectors.

I actually had to use the CHKDSK /R option on my aunt’s computer a few months ago because her computer was stuck in an endless reboot. I wasn’t 100% certain what the problem with her computer was by I had the feeling it was hard drive related. So CHKDSK was the first command I tried (after the normal attempts of booting with last known good configuration and safe mood). CHKDSK located around 5 bad sectors and was able to correct them all.

Once the CHKDSK process completed, I rebooted and immediately backed up all of her data just in case the hard drive decided to crash for good. Fortunately, her hard drive didn’t crash and her computer has been working flawlessly ever since I ran CHKDSK.

However, CHKDSK doesn’t fix everything so its good to know the other 10 items included in TechRepublic’s 10 things you can do when Windows XP won’t boot article.