Took the drive out and put it in a docking station on another PC..
The drive was recognized and and I am able to see contents.

ran Chkdsk /F and there were problems but chkdsk says they're fixed.

But when I put the drive back in the PC still can't boot off the
drive.
Being able to open the drive and copy all the stuff off it is pretty
good, but to be able to repair the issue would be best.

Any tips as to how to isolate problems and exorcise them?
thanks

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. You re-affirmed some things
and gave me fresh ideas.
BTW: All my PCs are XP pro and I got the OS CD

I hope it is possible to repair the MBR on a drive that is not running
the system. It would seem it would be easier since these diagnostics
all want you to exit Windows to use them.
Before the system finally quit, I had been trying to repair the MBR
because I was getting an error message during boot that related to a
Acronis install/uninstall.
I was also getting a message about the system not being able to load
Hive files.

I never did a fresh install but maybe the time has finally come to
learn.
v/r
timO'


If you boot with the XP cd there's a Recovery Console option. That
provides
an old style "command prompt", e.g. 'C:\' followed by a blinking cursor.
Believe FixMBR is a command can then be run, try "FIXMBR /?" first to see
if/what it says. Google, read, learn and hopefully it ends well.

If nothing's on it you care about clean install can't hurt. Might as well
insure go whole hog then and erase and repartition the hard disk in the
process just to start from scratch there also. The big "if" is 'Is the
hard
disk starting to fail?', try to run whatever manufacturer of hard disks
diagnostic program they provide, e.g. WD is Data LifeGuard (me thinks.

Although I've had good luck using Acronis numerous times, I do remember it
mucking things up once when it rebooted system to finish install but
particulars are forgotten.

I used xxclone to make an iso image of the problem drive onto another
drive I have available. reinstalled the problem drive in the original
PC and ran fixmbr and chkdsk /F
on the problem drive.

Still no go when i boot it reaches a certain point (The Windows splash
screen) and goes black and reboots.

I guess the only thing left is clean install. I wonder what data off
the iso image I can move back over. maybe there are other routines
within recovery console i could try.





snip


You could try a repair install first