Can not boot from anywhere (XP pro machine)

[arkem]

Here's the background. I tried to use "MusicMatch" a week or so ago and i got an update message (i think) and being in a hurry i clicked no. After that it wouldnt run and i got an erro about MMJBLloc.dll being missing. I reloaded a version of MusicMatch from CD-rom. But that didnt work. I selected a restore point. That didnt work. I "Removed" the app and reloaded again: no go; still some Runtime error, then "entry point not found". I selected an even older restore point. And then a slightly different error message but always a MicroSoft Visual Bacis C++ error. Somewhere in that week or so Service Pack 2 was installed. I tried another restore even earlier, but someone told me select "Undo" last 'Restore'. i walked away, when i came back the machine had auto re-started, and i found a blue screen and this text:

STOP: C0000135 {unable to locate component} This application has failed to start because winsrv was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

The "problem" is the machine no longer boots, in any mode. Not normal, not is Safe mode, not from CD-Rom, not by selecting "Use last known good configuration".

Its always the same. The BIOS starts, shows my twin SATA mirrored drives, then shows the XP Pro startup screen a couple seconds, goes black for about 5 seconds, spins the CR-ROM if that is selected, then the Blue Screen and the text message above.

Months ago i installed some Chinese tranlation software and i think it wanted the machine to be configure for QSL server or something which i let it do, but never have any problems until just the past two weeks. I suspect Servoce Pack2 was installed in this lastes mess but i didnt keep careful time based track.

Now what do i do? I dont care if i have to reload everything, as long as i can keep the data on the drives and the email address books and messages (this is my wifes machine)...but as it is i cant do anything ! [boy am i in the doghouse]

It occurs to be to disconnect current mirrored drives, boot from CD, reload Op-system, go in and get data from the mirrored stack but just as drives. Erase as much as i can from the mirrored stack. Shut down, take the temp drive out, and boot again with the orig mirrored stack, reload the Operatiing system again this time on the orig drives, and then slowly reload apps and drives needed but nothing that didnt come with the machine when it was purchased and worked fine.

But seeing as how this is SATA hard drives, AND the BIOS expects a PCI card with mirrored RAID....do i have to go get two more pre-formatted drives? And how do i have 3 or 4 drives in the system at same time (the original twins, i think i could just hook 1 to a SATA port on the mother board, but would the BIOS be correct then.

Is there as 'easier' way that my first thought?
Any ideas?

thanks in advance...in the dog house:
ron

[icecube]

I see two problems. You don't seem to have much faith in the way the system was performing before it died. and its not working now.

You probably have two good copies of all of your data. I would disable the raid and only mount one of the two drives. Put in your windows xp cd and boot from it. Do a new install without formating the drive and it will come back and say it already found windows installed and it will give you the option to repair. this is what you have to do if you ever change your motherboard and want to keep the xp os. This repair reenumerates the drivers and boot process. The only data that usually gets toasted, is what is on the desktop. Your os and programs should work fine.

Once you get it stable to boot, hook your second drive up to it as a slave and pull any missing files from it. your raid has done its job you shouldn't have lost anything.

[arkem]

icecube
THANK YOU. Yes this seems doable. And you're right those twin drives should have what i really need on both of them. The machine is way gone now. (i had disconnected 1 drive as a test, and now i also get a RAID error during the boot process, but it lets you go by it).
I have it in my car ready to take to Data Doctors as i was out of ideas and patience. My wife is pissed at me and i hate to give other people money because she is going to be mad at me whether they fix or not. And acutally only more pissed at me if they dont fix it correctly (save her data)...she could care less what it takes to get the machine to get to the point she can use what she thinks is the computer.

ron