Question : Problem: How can I recover data from a dirty volume?

I have a secondary SATA drive that I wish to extract data from. When I start my PC, it runs CHKDSK before XP Home loads. The following appears:

Checking file system on E:
The type of the file volume system is NTFS.
The volume is dirty.
CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.

This takes less than 15 seconds to complete, the the blue screen remains there with the E drive occasionally running. My patience ran out, and I shut down the computer and restarted without the E drive (and came to EE).

Should I have waited, and if so, for how long? (300 GB drive)
Is there another technique that I can use that skips the CHKDSK process so I can access the drive to copy files?

Answer : Problem: How can I recover data from a dirty volume?

chkdsk can run a very long time if it finds many errors on a large HD. Yours could easily take a day. You should let it run. (maybe run it on another PC so you can still use your standard PC).