Need new harddrive

You lost me at 'drive imaging'. Half the time my laptop boots up just fine. Then I get this blue screen with lots of text basically telling me my computer was all messed up. Then when I try to reboot, I get:\
No Bootable CD in ATAPI CD-ROM
Intel UNDI, PXE 2.0 (build 082)
Copyright ....

For REaltek RTL8139CX/8130/810X PCI Fast
Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE Rom
Press any key when ready

I kept getting that and couldn't get any further (this has been going on for days) so finally tried my recovery disc. It said
Recovery - size of hard disk was unaquirable.

Does that sound like my hard disk is fried?

related resource: hard drive recovery

It's possible, but from what you're telling me, your optical drive is the one that has my attention right now. Have you tried removing the optical drive? And what does the blue screen say? This might tell me more.

I read your response too quickly; I take it back. I don't think there's a problem with your optical drive. It's the hard drive, but it might just be disconnected. This happens with laptops every now and then (not frequently, but it happens). The drive is not held in place with screws, like it would be in a desktop. The IDE and power connectors actually hold it there, and it can come loose.

Try disconnecting the drive by sliding it away from the pins, then pushing it back in again. See if that helps. If not, your hard drive has probably failed. This would explain why the computer is cycling for boot media, failing to find bootable media in the optical drive, and failing to find a server to connect to (PXE-E61: Media test failure.check cable).

Ah, now that sounds like something I can do. I wonder if that could be why it works periodically.

Blue screen says: a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR
If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen (it isn't) restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. (nothing new) yada, yada
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software etc (nothing new)
Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing.
Technical information:
STOP: OxOOOOOO7A (0xcOOOOOOEM OxE1610678, Ox03F66880)
Beginning dump of physical memory

Okay, so your kernel might be corrupt. It happens sometimes if the hard drive has bad sectors (where the magnetic polarity is lost). It could also be other things, like a virus or even bad memory. But most malware today are not viruses, so I think the blue screen may be related to your hard drive.

Again, I suggest you turn off your laptop, turn it over, take out the battery, open the hard drive compartment, slide the hard drive away from the pin connectors, then slide it back into place (slowly, until the pins are just barely in, then press it firmly into them), close the compartment, reconnect the battery, and power up.

If that doesn't work, my next suggestion is HDD Regenerator (not free, but there are a few places you can get it for free...). This program creates a bootable CD or floppy disk (whichever you choose). You boot from it, tell it which drive to scan (usually only one), tell it which range to scan (or just press Enter and it will scan the whole thing), and leave it alone. Whenever it finds a bad sector, it will sit there and prod that sector until it gets remagnetized. This is one of those special programs that fixes your hard drive WITHOUT erasing your data!

If that doesn't work, my next suggestion is to take it to a shop. Fixing the problem may be as simple as doing a repair install, in which case a Microsoft disc is needed (restore media won't work). Or you could need new RAM. But I doubt it's either of these; everything you've told me is pointing back to the hard drive. Either it's not connected properly, or it has bad sectors, or worse...it needs to be replaced. Try disconnecting and reconnecting it, and let me know what happens.

Oh yeah, I forgot. When you're taking out the battery, do unplug the power too if it's plugged in.;)

Unplug - yes, unplugging is good! Ok, I'll try jiggling the hard drive. That I think I can do. At one point, it ran a check disk by itself, and did find a bad sector. I assumed it fixed it. If I do have to get a new harddrive, can I use the recovery disk I got with the computer to reinstall windows xp? I really really really don't want Vista. And by the way, thank you so much for your help.

related resource: hard drive recovery

You shouldn't jiggle the hard drive. Anyway, yes, as long as the new drive is connected to the same motherboard, it will work. And it's perfectly legal to do so. The license belongs to the motherboard.

That sounds like something worth looking into. Right now it is working, and I got all I needed off it onto a flash drive. So I'm just working with it to see how long it works, etc.