Power Surge

Last night the power flashed 3 times within the span of a few minutes, and my computer didn't handle it very well. When it finally rebooted, I skipped scanning in favor of shutting it down in case the power went out and messed it up even more. When it was all clear, I turned it on and it scanned and it replaced the security on all my files and when it came back it was even worse. Now my task bar has vanished and when I ctrl+alt+del it says CPU usage is at 100% (it sounds normal though, not like it's working itself into a melt down). An error came up the first time it finished restarting, but when I clicked it in hopes of it giving me more information it vanished and I haven't seen it since.

I have tried to restore, the only way I can run anything is to find command prompt through My Computer. When I type "%systemroot%\system32\drivers\" I keep getting "System Restore was unable to create a restore point. Please restart your computer and run System Restore again."

I restart, same exact thing. I've tried running in safe mode and I still don't have a task bar.

The only time I got the System Restore window to come up, the "turn off" option was clicked. Does that mean I'm majorly boned? Why wouldn't it be enabled by default? I'm all out of ideas, and I don't think I had anything backed up. I really don't know that much about computers and I've never had anything like this happen. When I've had to re-install windows in the past it was functioning enough for me to pull the things I wanted off, but I really don't have that option this time and I can't say I was at all prepared. Please help, I'll try anything at this point. I apologize for this being so long, but I wanted to put everything out there.

 

I have a complete shot( ok a few) in the dark but....

What about pulling the hard drive (that hopefully still contains the data) and putting it in another pc and using it as a slave drive to then get your files ( and to see if it still exists)

Do you have your xp cd and have you tried a repair install once you boot from the cd.

Or download a cd bootable rescue disc (hopefully from another PC?)--Mini-pe was one I used to use, or Knoppix (a linux distro that you use as live cd it can read and write NTFS(windows) files without ever booting to windows)


bang,bang,bang--clicxk click..dammit I'm outta ammo

 

Scandisk?