reading vista hard drive

[corpse]

I have a computer with vista and all of a sudden it wouldnt turn on. Turned out to be power supply. Now, with new power supply, it says, "insert system disk and press any key....etc."

I put this vista hard drive into an XP computer as a slave and it boots and finds the drive, but when I open the drive it doesnt list documents and settings or all the usual things.

I assume the drive is dead, but want to check and get a couple opinions.

[obsidian]

What do you see when you actually open the drive while it is plugged in as a slave? Do you see any files at all or is it completely blank?

I doubt the drive itself is dead if it still operates at all while plugged in as a slave, it may be an issue with a malfunctioning windows master boot record (which can potentially be repaired).

If you have a Live CD of some sort, like Ubuntu, try booting off of the CD and see if you can see the files on the hard drive from within Ubuntu.

[corpse]

When I open as a slave it shows "recorded tv shows", "a couple of folders with long names with letters and numbers [nothing in them", and thats about it.

[^misantropia^]

Sounds like the drive itself is fine but the file system on it is whacked. Try a repair tool first, a reformat second.