trouble with laptop hdd

[havi]

So my friends installation of xp professional had a few files become corrupted and I've tried repairing the install without success. So I went and bought an adapter to allow me to plug his laptop hdd into my desktop computer so I can retrieve the files he wants to keep, then I'll just reformat the drive and start over.

The problem is that when I hook up his hdd, I can't get my computer to load windows (XP). I think its because the laptop hdd is still thinking it is supposed to be the master drive. I've tried changing the jumper settings on the primary hdd of my desktop but I still can't get it to work. Any ideas on getting this to work?

[glc]

It's more likely a hard drive with damaged sectors. Boot it with hard drive manufacturer's diagnostics on a floppy or CD (or a UBCD) and test the drive. Disconnect your hard drives if necessary.

[havi]

Tts a toshiba hdd, and I'm having trouble finding any diagnostics programs from them. Is it ok if I use the programs from wester digital or seagate?

[glc]

Lovely. There are no diags that will both report and repair for Toshiba drives that I know of. I usually use the Hitachi/IBM DFT to test Toshibas.

Stick it in your desktop as a single drive and boot with the XP CD, use the repair console and run chkdsk /r . Then reconnect your main drive and hook the Toshiba up to the OTHER IDE channel and see what happens.