If you like, I can upload an ISO of ERD Commander 5 or an ISO of the F4 UBCDv4 which contains ERDC 5.
ERD Commander is an official MS CD which boots to an XP "rescue environment" GUI which, amongst a host of other invaluable tools, includes access to System Restore points and it generally works.

Thank you for your kind offer.

My ancient pc circa 2003 uses a pair of SATA drives for C: - when I built the pc I needed to use a SATA driver floppy during XP installation.

I have used a XP disc to repair a more basic pc a year or so back and ISTR the repair requesting the SATA disc.

My intention is to try the standard Repair later today and if that goes OK, it may even fix my initial problem yesterday which caused me to use System Restore to go back to an earlier date. The initial problem being loss of log in info to new websites.

If I cannot progress the Repair, I will likely be back here....

Cheers!

Update.

Attempted to carry out a repair install, but at each attempt sometimes quite early after booting with the winXP dvd on other times just before the Repair option appeared, I got a BSOD with typically:-

STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78D663C, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

Tried the suggested CHKDSK /F from a c: prompt in Safe Move, but since system in use pc offered to carry out next bootup, but it didn't.

Do you think it worth trying your ERDC 5 ?

What is not helping me is the C: drive being a SATA array, luckily most of my data is on a seperate HDD and C: just used for winXP and programs.

Cheers!

The "0x0000007B" error along with your login problem suggests malware (Possible boot sector infection) so before we try anything else, download, burn and boot the affected machine from the Kaspersky Rescue Disk. Carry out a full scan.

In the meantime, tomorrow, I'll upload the F4 4.0 UBCD which I'm pretty certain has provision to load a floppy image as a virtual drive on pressing F6. I'll need the make/model of your SATA controller to create this image.
The ISO's are created from an XP SP3 CD but better to be safe than sorry.

Edited by Deadbeat (Sun 28-Apr-13 00:04:59)

Thanks

The SATA controller is built into the MSI motherboard which is a K7N2G Series MS-6570 The SATA controller is a Promise 376 with the floppy labled G72-PRSA040

Cheers!

Is the XP repair cd SP3 slipstreamed, the BSOD suggests not and suggest that SATA drivers are not present on the XP disc.

I have a choice of two original WinXP discs, either one with SP1 on or the other with SP2. I have a MS disc with just the SP on for SP3 (but of course that will not boot).

SATA drivers are on a 3.5inch disc which normally inserted when requested after keying F6 earlier when asked.

Cheers!

Ah right.... So you already have the SATA drivers and an accessible floppy drive? That makes life easier. I'll upload the ISO in a mo but it will take some time. I'll PM you when it's done.

if you have access to a Vista, Win 7 or Win 8 DVD you can do a chkdsk with those - they'll likely understand the RAID / SATA card and they have a better chkdsk algorithm too.

Though if it fails to boot off a floppy with a BSOD that isn't likely to be file system corruption on the hard disk