So, MobileGrafik - my trusty Dell XPS laptop of some 2 and a half years - has finally gone to join the choir celestibule (or is very nearly on the way).

It boots (takes ages doing so - first warning sign) and resets itself when it gets to the loading screen for Windows. Same thing happens with last known good configuration *and* all flavours of Safe Mode.

So, my geeky chums, does anyone know of a free utility I can bung on my pen drive to boot up and run a disk check? Live CD?

look for UBCD, there's general test utils as well as manufacturer-specific hard drive test utils.

From what you say chances are it's just Windows, but if you're sure it's on it's last legs (or HD equivalent, last bearings?) you may be as well off getting the thing backed up using a USB caddy first though, just to be on the safe side.

Sounds like the hard drive is the issue tbh... (being what's installed on there as steev said, or the actual drive its self dunno) but yes, a live cd should work, steev recommended the better one, UBCD (Ultimate boot CD) http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Cheers guys. I actually remembered I had gparted...

Turns outI need to run chkdsk /f and reboot twice. However I can't get that far so I'm trying to wangle a replacement drive from Dell.

Boot a windows cd (any bootable xp disk will do) and press R at the first available screen for recovery console, then run it from there

Cool. Well, Dell are replacing the hard drive for me (extended warranty WIN). It was dying anyway, but this way I should be able to recover some of the files, which is really all I care about.

Thanks for the help, though.

Closing.