HDD recovery, can't boot, is seen in bios, not in win xp Help please!

[statikshock]

OK here is my problem, and ill try and have as little redundancy as possible

My computer out of the blue decided that I didn't want to boot with my C: drive any more... (yes i know i should make regular backups, but if i did, i wouldnt be here, now would I?)

ok first, with the old HDD:
i have my bios set to a floppy-cd-hdd boot order
so after it checks for any bootable cds, it stops and says "a disc read error has occured, press ctrl-alt-del to restart"
so i cannot get to the F8 menu...
if i boot with the in xp disc and go to repair... it wont let me login to the install of windows, so i cant move files anywhere
if i boot with an xp floppy, it says hal.dll is missing/corrupt so cannot boot, which i would replace, but for me not being able to move files in repair mode.

having no probs with new hdd that i installed xp pro on, fresh new install, upgraded all and stuff, and in windows, it will not see the old hdd.
bios recognizes it, and all pre-windows boot stuff recognize it... so i know the physical hdd isnt bad... i can see data in recovery mode, just cant DO anything with it...

i basically only care about two folders on the old HDD, and would like to recover those if at all possible

i was wondering if anyone had ANY ideas of what i can do to get my files back.

please keep in mind that I have ZERO extra money... so anything that is free, and non-destructive to the data would be helpful. Telling me to go to a recovery company would not be helpful.

thanks for any and all help
-statik

 

[Samstoned]

after you put the xp disc in
and do fresh boot up
make sure you have bios set to boot from cd first
when screen comes up asking what you want to do don't repair from here
if you have sata drive load the drives here then wait till xp finds the older OS here is where you tell it to repair
I do a small hdd repair service and this seems to be the most confusing part of W$K and XP_eration.
on the other hand you did not say if you tried to change boot order to boot from hdd first
it could be cd rom drive is bad

 

[statikshock]

i dont really understand your reply...
if i set to boot from HDD before cd drive, it gives the same error message
it doesnt matter if the cdrom drive was bad, its giving me the error message when it tries to boot the HDD, no matter the order

(and the cd-rom drive isnt bad as i can use it to boot/etc.)

i dont have Sata drives, just regular old IDE cable drives

what older OS?

neither HDD i have has 2 xp installs on it, its two separate HDDs, each with its own install
drive one: xp pro bad
drive two: xp pro good

the 2nd drive is how i know that windows wont see the bad hdd, no matter where on the chains it is.

im mainly looking for software that can help me copy files from the bad HDD to one of my "good" HDDs outside of windows, as windows refuses to acknowledge the existence of the bad hdd when it is attached to any of the 4 ide chains on my mobo.
(software with an emphasis on FREE)

-statik

 

[rowdy]

tried Linux?

If you have access to a burner, download a linux live cd iso and burn it. http://www.distromania.com/ or
www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php I myself have been dragging around a copy of Knoppix for years. You should be able to see your bad drive in Linux. If it is a NTFS drive you will need to read this
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/ntfs.html
Hope it helps