NTFS partition not booting

I have a 30G hard drive - 20 G NTFS partition with Windows XP Pro and programs; 10G some misc data. For some reason, the hard drive will no longer boot. I can boot with the WinXP CD and do the recovery console, but without adequate instructions I'm afraid I'll wipe out the NTFS partition and not be able to get to some very important files in that partition. Questions: can I do a fixmbr without damaging ability to access the partition? Will an fdisk /mbr get it to the point where I can access? If I do a Windows "reinstall" can I do that without wiping out the data in the partition? And please don't preach about backups - I'm an IT guy and should know better but I didn't Thanks in advance

 

Thanks for the "Welcome. "

Another method I considered is to install the drive in my PC as a 'slave' (2d hard drive) drive, then use the 'master' to log in to the box and see if I can get to the files I need that way. Thoughts?

 

Yes, I'll be putting the drive in a 2d box. As for the other, none of the normal bootup options (3 safe modes and 1 normal) will boot the drive. I see a very brief flash of blue screen go by before it loops back to the 'start all over again' mode. I've tried to catch some of the words, and I'm pretty sure it's a message I've seen on PCs before when the boot partition goes sour, something like '...if you've never seen this screen before.....'

 

Pete,

I managed to do just what I said I'd try and was able to recover the files I needed. Now I can try that ol' "repair" thing without worrying about the files, or my wife torturing me