Help with new SATA hard drive

I was getting an unmountable_boot_volume message and was unable to get into recovery mode or do anything so I went and bought a new hard drive (seagate barracuda) which I was planning to install as master and try and recover some stuff off the old drive. The problem I have now is that it appears I have no xp instal disks as Compaq do not issue them (preinstalled on partition - which I can't get to!) Can anyone suggest any help please? I don't have a floppy drive so can't boot from floppys!

All suggestions greatfully recieved!
 
Compaq will sell you the disc set, in most cases... less than $30 if you have the serial numbers, including shipping.
 
get knoppix or bartPE
make bootable disc should help get in to copy the protected files over
the (few)new systems I have setup
I make images to dvd right away
 
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