hey Skarpo2, IMO, your only objective should be to get your data off the failing drive, ASAP. Then install a new drive. Hopefully others will have specific suggestions. (Have you considered temporarily removing the failing drive, installating a new hard drive, reinstalling windows, then trying to run repairs from  the "new" Windows running on the good hard drive?) [URL] ([URL] google "hard drive repair utility": [URL] [URL] [URL]#2 [URL]#2 [URL]#1 --- [URL] [URL] --- [URL]   
I cannot believe how hard it is to simply run Chkdsk on a system with a hard drive issue. I cannot boot to Windows anymore, so I would like to run Chkdsk in order to possibly repair the problematic sectors.  I tried building a BartPE disk, but it always generates 4 errors (Delete some registry keys) which cannot be fixed - I tried it on seveal PCs (with the original Dell reinstallation disk as source).  I tried using the Recovery Console, but it asks me for an administrator password although I never entered any password and blank doesn't work either.  I googled for a boot CD or how to make an XP boot disk for hours but I cannot find anything but BartPE or sites trying to sell some utilities.  In the old days (Windows 95, 98. ME), you could easily create such a boot floppy and I still have some, but they will not work on NTSF.  My drive was still working yesterday, even this morning I was still able to boot into safe mode at least. But now it will just hang at the Windows loading screen. I ran the diagnostics and got a drive read error, so I know my drive is bad, but I would still like to recover some data from it. I even hoped to possibly repair it with chkdsk, marking the bad sectors and just go on working, like I did on another system before.   
Need a CHKDSK Boot CD for XP - PLEASE HELP!