Backing up hard drive

[Hwon]

Well, I recently had my emachines T2596 motherboard fry on me, along with the PSU, and after reading many a post on failing emachines motherboard I decided against getting one directly from them. So i decided to get a new motherboard and power supply along with a newer, better CPU from newegg.
So I start up computer and it says something along the lines of "disk boot failed: please insert system disk" so I find the recovery cd and put it in. Now it's saying that all my files will be erased because it needs to reinstall Windows XP and to backup my files before I continue. What should I do? Is it still possible to back up my hard drive somehow?
Any help would be appreciated.

 

[fastco]

Boot from the XP cd and go into the recovery console. When you get to a c: prompt type fixmbr. When that is done type chdsk /f. Reboot the computer without the cd and see if that works. If not you will need a Bart PE disk or Ultimate Boot CD, boot from one of those and that will let you burn or save the data to a cd or external storage device if the data is recoverable.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[Nodsu]

If the PSU killed the mobo, then it might as well have killed your hard drive and pretty much anything else.

 

[darel001]

If u dont mind the trouble and the info and data on the drive is very important , I recomend Spinrite spin right something like that, it will help you recover your data but you have to run the disk on a different computer(a working one) after you extract the data , just pop it in your old computer and run a fresh instalation of windows. This will also help u have a good fresh faster computer.

 

[Hwon]

Thank you guys for all the replies.

Boot from the XP cd and go into the recovery console. When you get to a c: prompt type fixmbr. When that is done type chdsk /f. Reboot the computer without the cd and see if that works. If not you will need a Bart PE disk or Ultimate Boot CD, boot from one of those and that will let you burn or save the data to a cd or external storage device if the data is recoverable.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

I will try that and come back and tell you what happens. I hope the information on the hard drive didnt get messed up.

 

[Hwon]

Well, I was able to back up my hard drive successfully, so that was a plus. There wasnt any problems or anything. So I put in the restore cd again, restore all the original files, boot up the computer and bam another problem. It goes to the windows loading screen for like a second, than a blue screen comes up for a split second and the system restarts. It goes on and on and on.
Occasionally it'll ask if I want to start in safe mode, last known good configuration, or start normally. None of the options do anything. They all go to the blue screen for a split second and it restarts. Does anyone know what's wrong?

 

[Nodsu]

Windows installed for one kind of motherboard as a rule does not work with another. You have to do a repair install to make it use drivers suitable for your new motherboard.

 

[Hwon]

Windows installed for one kind of motherboard as a rule does not work with another. You have to do a repair install to make it use drivers suitable for your new motherboard.

Thank you so much. That worked perfectly. My computer is up and running and working better than ever. I wonder what I wouldve done without this place.