Oh boy, could I use some help. I get the following message when trying to strart up my computer or go into safe mode:

Realtek rtl 8139 (x)/8130/810x pci fast ethernet controller v 2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE: exiting PXE ROM

This flashes over and over. When I go into BIOS, there seems to be no help there. I have varied my boot up sequence, and tried turning of the network sequence, to no help.

I did put my HDDs to boot first then I got the message at startup: Invalid partition table. I then used partition doctor to rebuild the partition table. But this has not worked either. I took out my second hard drive (this system is a laptop) and then computer boots up and works fine. So I know it has to do with the second hard drive, but I also know it works because partition doctor was able to run it's own version of scandisk and reported no errors, and it displays all the partitions along with their unique names and size...when I put the hard drive back in, it gives me the realtek message.

Also, the hard drive in question is my secondary. The primary drive, which works fine when I remove the secondary, contains the OS.

S.O.S.!
Harvey

Try disabling the onboard network card inthe BIOS if you have that option.  Also, it sounds like your secondary drive is either dead or dying.  I would take steps to recover the data and replace it.  

Your best option for recovering the data is probably to get a USB drive case and put this drive in there, effectively making it an external hard drive.  That way, you can boot the computer without the drive, then attach it through USB and attempt to recover the data.  Of course, you are going to have a difficult time recovering the data if you re-created the partition table.

DO they have cases for laptop hard drives? I think it is like 3.5".

You think I will not be able to recover since I rebuilt the partition table? The partitions of that drive still have the names I named them inside partition doctor.  It  checked the disk surface and it said the drive was fine.

Harvey

Laptop hard drives are usually 2.5".  Yes, they do have external enclosures for them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010090092+1053807124&name=2.5%22

If I use ghost to rooll back my c drive (system drive), will that give me back the old partition table?

The answer is probably not.  If the c drive is the working hard drive, then it cannot help you recover the bad drive.

If you have a bit-by-bit image of the bad drive, then that will give you back your partition table.  If your image is just a standard image, then the image does not contain a partition table and won't help you recover it.  That is not to say that you can't get the data back, just that it won't be easy.  Some of the people frequenting the Ghost boards on this forum can probably help you with that better than I can.

I dont have an up to date ghost image of the bad drive; I....I dont believe I rebuilt the partition table and that was the wrong thing to do.

I bought a case for the drive and hooked it up. It reads, and all my folders are there, but they all show as empty, even though the files take up as much space as they originally did.

Is there anything I can do? Anything on the "ultimate boot cd"?

Thanks for all the help.

Harvey

There probably is some sort of drive forensics you can do to get the files back, but it is beyond the scope of my knowledge and will be technical in nature.