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>The system has a RAID1 (mirroring) C: drive, if that matters. I'd remove a drive one at a time if I knew how.

Software RAID ? My loader partition is as simple as possible, so I can recreate by swapping a disk, using a linux boot cd or some other easy means to get the system running again.

In your case I'ld load up either linux or XP (via Bart PE) from CD/DVD, make a backup of the most urgently needed files to an USB disk, then boot from XP boot disk and try to repair the installation. But try backup FIRST! If you have another XP machine in the house, you can attach the disk there, as long as you didn't use XP encryption, which is tied to the OS/user-combination for each instance.

For the future installations , I'ld reccomend
a) a loader partition
b) pure system partition(s if using multiple boot - reccomended just for such cases <bg>)
c) imaging software to make a snapshot of a) and b) for easy recovery.

Makes a bit more effort to set up, but makes sense IMHO and is easier to defrag, if you also keep a separate program drive and special drive for all data files you need to secure. The *nix people know why they reccomend such setups.


>Any ideas as to what might be wrong here? My sense is that the HD has access problems, though I had no warning of such and have no way to confirm. I'm guessing based solely of not being able to boot INTO Windows.

There are some non-destructive tests on most DVD-start editions. Also look in the net for editors to check the master partition info - perhaps only that is inaccessible. A win98 boot CD might help if you boot into DOS. But as you are starting to boot into XP, it is probably some sector spaghetti in the OS directory. Again - try to save your urgent data and then the repair console.

Good Luck - been there and know it is not all fun...

regards

thomas