\Windows\System\vgaoem.fon is missing or corrupt!

First things first, it seems like that everytime some one posts a Uncorrectable data error or media is write protected in HD diagnostic, it seems like everybody and their mother tells them that the hard drive needs to be replaced. This isn't always the case.

 

There are two things that you should try first before getting a new hard drive.

 

1. Using the Dell XP cd or the XP cd that was used the last time it was installed, boot from cd,(make sure that the bios is set to look at your cd/dvd drive first in the boot menu).  When it boots up and loads all the files and brings you to the first menu, enter the Windows Recovery console, when you do this, it will go to a black screen, the first thing that will probably pop up is a message about using a non-standard keyboard, just let it time out, then it will bring up a list of windows installations such as this for example, if WIndows has been installed more than once, to a different directory, it will list those as well.  It will tell you to type the number related to the Windows directory you want to enter.

 

1.C:\WINDOWS

 

just type the number and press enter, then it will ask for a password, if you don't use a password to log into Windows just press enter, If somebody has a log on with Administrator privileges, and they have a password, that password will have to be typed in.  It will give you 3 chances, on the third try with the wrong password, the computer will reboot and you have to start all over from the beginning.

once you have sucessfully logged on, it will bring you to a command prompt such as C:\.  The next thing you do is type chkdsk /p /r (I think it is r or it might be v) and press enter.  Windows perfroms its own HD diag and can take a long time depending on the size of the HD. But after it is finished, it will give you a report on the hard drive, in this report it will tell you things such as size, number of sectors and such, but what you need to pay attention to is whether or not the report says that there were errors or problems and it was fixed or it wasn't fixed. 

 

If it says that ALL was fixed, your HD is ok.  Since you are getting the missing or corrupt error on boot, you are going to have to do an installation repair.  First you can type exit and the computer should restart or you can physically restart it yourself, let the computer boot from the XP cd again and when the first menu appears choose the Install option, next it will detect whether or not there is a previous installation, if there is a previous installation that isn't too messed up, it will list the installation, when it lists the detected installation it will give you an option to repair, choose the repair option, and the next thing it will do is delete all Windows SYSTEM FILES, and only system files and nothing else, then it reinstalls the system files, reboots and installs the rest of the files, THIS WHOLE PROGRESS WILL LOOK LIKE IT IS INSTALLING WINDOWS AS IF FROM SCRATCH, SO DON'T FREAK OUT. Once it is done, it boots back up into windows and everything should be fine.

 

If it doesn't detect a previous Windows installation, you are going to have to reinstall the whole thing and it will give you the option or not wheter you want to delete the partion or reformat and ect.. since Windows was on the computer and other software from Dell or software that you put on yourself, what will happen is when you reinstall without formating or repartioning, it will write over the current installation, and when that happens, you will boot up into Windows and it will look like nothing else has been installed, but all previous software and ect. is still there if you were to go to My Computer and browse the contents of your hard drive, since all Windows related files were replaced, Windows does not know about all the other software that was installed from previous installations, which means you have to reinstall all programs and games, maybe except for drivers.  To put it simply, you are better off reformating and repartitioning UNLESS IF YOU HAVE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS OR FILES THAT YOU CREATED ON THE COMPUTER.

 

Alrighty, now back to the part whether or not the chkdsk command in Windows Recovery Console fixed or not fixed all errors.  I have just covered what to do IF IT WAS ABLE TO REPAIR ALL ERRORS.  Now here is what you do if it does not fix all errors.

 

If the chkdsk command does not fix all errors, don't lose all hope yet, find out the brand of the hard drive, go to their website and download their utilities for your hard drive, most of them do, and run their tests, a lot of the utilities that theses companies provide for their hard drive do have tools to attempt to repair the hard drive, if that does not work, well then you have no choice but to buy a new hard drive, if it does work just go through the steps of repairing a current windows installation or reinstalling as metioned above, good luck