Boot Problems

For a while I had a hardware problem with one of my SATA drives. I did and it was a wire...2 days after fixing the problem i get the error again except I have a sneaky suspicion its a virus because i got an error before i logged in. The computer was just sitting and it went to the windows xp screen saver...then i got the infamous blaster virus pop up...it might not be blaster but I remember it looked a lot like blaster's 1 minute till shutdown window and then it froze....i was planning on install windows XP fresh no formats and just run a virus scan inside. Just installed a fresh copy wont get rid of my documents and data correct? Just replaces all the windows system files? I believe that is it but if not o well and any other suggestions on handeling this problem would be great. thanx in advanced

 

Oops sorry. My typing wasn't quite up to par last night. I was asking if I installed a copy of windows xp would it save my documents. Win XP Pro when you install it again just copys over the old version, but I believe I remembered if it could read the registry it would save everything you have. This is almost common with all windows version, but I am just double checking because I don't want to lose my data if neccesary. Also if there might actually be an easier way such as...recovering my boot area...which i believe the problem is due to viral activities...DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!