Have a question on widnows XP boot problem

I cannot get into Winddows XP on my "C" drive. I have a
notebook (HP) and the recovery disk wants to format that
darn think. Can I use fdisk and make a partition and
install windows 95 or 98 and use that to recover some data
files. If so do I make that a primary partition. I
believe you can only have one boot partition??? Once I
retrieve the couple of files and a few pictures I will
then format the whole thing using my recovery CD from HP
that came with the notebook.

Thanks for your time,
Pete

Number one it is best to install windows 95 first and then windows xp. If
you do not install in that order windows will not create a boot menu which
will allow you to pick the operating system you wish to install. Otherwise
you need a third party boot menu such as boot magic.
Number two fdisk will wipe out all your data. You need a third party
software to allow partitioning without destroying data i.e. partition magic
8.
Do you have your drive formated in fat32 or NTFS. If it is fat32 you can
recover your files via dos. Use a Windows ME or Windows 98 recovery floppy
so that you can burn the files on to a CD.
If it NTFS there are some free programs that allow you to recover files. I
am not at my home computer so I don't have the information. Maybe someone
reading this will have the information.
"Pete" <pmaczik@self-serv.net> wrote in message
news:03e901c35ad9$7305f840$a601280a@phx.gbl...

> I cannot get into Winddows XP on my "C" drive. I have a
> notebook (HP) and the recovery disk wants to format that
> darn think. Can I use fdisk and make a partition and
> install windows 95 or 98 and use that to recover some data
> files. If so do I make that a primary partition. I
> believe you can only have one boot partition??? Once I
> retrieve the couple of files and a few pictures I will
> then format the whole thing using my recovery CD from HP
> that came with the notebook.
>
> Thanks for your time,
> Pete
>