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Yes, I have this advice:
Since you are concerned about data loss,
I suggest you immediately stop any
further troubleshooting on this hard drive
and turn the computer off and carefully
remove the hard drive and store it in a
safe place.
Then install a new hard drive and do a
clean install of XP Home. I suggest that
you first disconnect any peripherals such
as printers, scanners, cameras, and USB
whatevers before doing the clean install.
Also disconnect any Internet connections
first, especially cable modems that do not
go through a router. After the clean install,
DO NOT connect to the Internet unless you
have a firewall enabled or your computer is
behind a router. Once connected to the
Internet, be sure to immediately get all
XP critical updates installed and then install
an XP compatible Anti Virus Program and update it.
Then install your applications, but temporarily
disable the AVP, before installing any of those
applications.
Finally then, hook up your old hard drive as a
slave drive and see if you can access any data
on it and if so retrieve it and BACK IT UP onto
external media such as CDR and KEEP IT
BACKED UP so that if anything like this ever
happens in the future, you can just shrug it off
and format your new hard drive and do a clean
install again.
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