Boot files corrupted?

Fired up my computer last night and when I came back to it it was at a blank grey screen. Restarted and it gets as far as booting up (checking for a cd, floppy, HD)then goes to that screen.

Tried Xp, ME and 98 startup floppies but the commands I was told to type(a computer building friend) such as win - gave me a 'bad file name" error and command, command.com did nothing. Tried to start in safemode but when it goes to the screen for me to choose which operating system it just hangs. Tried the command regscan /restore, 'bad file name etc' message; tried 'last known good configuration' - nothing!

I have since discovered I'm formatted in FAT32 not NTFS - I'm partitioned and have a recovery cd.

Tried my 'recovery' disc but it didn't recognise my usb mouse; plugged in an old mouse - success but it only gave 2 options which both wiped out my data off C:.

Put in a borrowed XP home edition cd and it got me back into windows.

My boot files must be corrupted??
Can I use my XP windows 'restore' function to get these files working again or do I need to copy these files back on my system? I don't know anything about these files and I'm too scared to play around in case I can't start the computer again.confused I don't want to format and loose my data.

PS I made my XP boot floppy 2 weeks ago, are these suppose to be able to boot into windows?

 

I'm a bit unclear... can you boot successfully to your Windows XP desktop with all the icons, shortcuts, start button, task bar/system tray, etc.?

 

Yes. Everything looks normal, but I needed to use winXP cd to boot.

 

To rebuild the boot sector for XP do the following:

Boot the WinXP CD to start setup.
At the menu choose 'R' for Repair.
At the repair options menu choose 'C' for the recovery console.
Enter 'fixboot c:' where c: is the drive letter to have the boot sector rewritten.

 

Thanks Europa for your advice, very much appreciated.

 

Is your problem solved ?

Can you please explain the problem & its solution, as my problem was just similar to it I suppose, but the bad news was that I lost all my data.... and after that i had to get that recovery by a data recovery software company

 

Yes my problem is solved and I don't know why? One of my kids turned off the computer by mistake before I had a chance to reload the boot files and when we started up the computer again it just booted normally! Huh?

If you read my first post that is all I did to my computer, I didn't rebuild my boot sector as described by Europa, as I hadn't had a chance. So why did my computer suddenly start booting normally again? I have no idea. Also I didn't clarify what actually happened when I typed in 'command.com' at the command prompt.

Something did happen - I could hear the floppy ticking over and then the operating system that I am running was printed on the screen but it still wouldn't allow me into windows. I used this command with every startup disk I tried, so maybe that is the reason it worked?? But then I still needed the XP CD to boot up the first time? Oh I don't know, I'm just waffling on now, sorry.
Maybe someone knowledgeable would know the answer?