Postscript to yesterday: Windoze restored #Windows XP

Just to finish my story of PC adventure... after chkdsk /p /r had run on both those old Windows XP boxes (took an hour or so) I ran FIXBOOT on the old nail (as it wouldn't boot) and when that didn't work I tried FIXMBR. At this point I was informed that the MBR was either missing or as corrupt as most politicians, and that I could possibly lose everything - presumably including my house, my family - if I continued. Despite that apparent threat I went ahead, bravely. Alas, no dice (again, with feeling).  So then instead of using the Recovery Console I went into clean install but chose "Repair". Perhaps I should have started here - it zapped plenty of files and started copying new ones.

I had to type in the dreaded Product Key as it acted like a clean install, but that was no problem as it was legit and there was a sticker to prove it. Less than an hour later I had Windoze running again, no spontaneous reboots anymore and all of my data intact, including the old accounts, all programs and key settings. I just had to plug everything back in and turn back "on" what I had turned "off" in the BIOS. In the course of this adventure I had also installed a CD player (as it was using an external DVD player/writer before all went crazy) and changed the boot order in order to boot from the Windows disc... but for now I'll leave it like that. I also cleaned up inside and removed an old spare IDE cable. I used a version of Windows with SP2 as I wasn't sure if I should use the latest SP3 disc - but I actually can't see why that wouldn't have worked. I also have the original pre-service pack Windows disc but didn't want to restore back that far only to have to reinstall all of the service packs.  Anyway, it works.

Now with the other, newer, machine the chkdsk /p /r was enough to solve the problem - it booted up successfully. Again I needed to restore all functionality in the BIOS and I'll now clean it up and resolve a few old issues in the registry. But it works.