Bootup problem

[#1]

All of a sudden my pc wont start up properly. During the bootup it says Windows hasn't started properly, gives me a list of Safe modes to start, then when it gets to the bit where it displays the Windows XP thing, it stays there for a few seconds, then there is a very brief blue screen, and my pc goes back to the beginning of reboot. It goes round and round this loop. Selecting a Safe mode has no effect.
I have tried booting by inserting my Win XP Pro CD, and I can get into Repair, but when the screen shows the DOS screen, I try 'DIR enter', but the pc doesn't list anything.
Has my hard disk died? If so, what hance it is only the C: partition, and not the whole disk?
I would be grateful for any help please

[#2]

Have a read here
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic23407.html

[#3]

And if that doesn`t work, get someone to download and burn a Linux Mint 11 Live CD .. so you can boot up, and then access your folders from there.

[#4]

Yes that looks remarkably like my symptoms. I have removed the hard drive, and fitted it into another pc as a slave hard drive. When that pc booted, it went into chkdsk without my instruction. Chkdsk found all sorts of things that I have never seen before from chkdsk. I then returned my hard drive to the original pc, and that rebooted reasonably happily. It has worked ever since.
I have taken a backup of all my files, so at least if the hard drive fails permanently, I have my data.
Just in case, I am going to fit a new hard drive. Hopefully, I can get a Ghost of the original hard drive to the new hard drive, though I have never done that before.
Many thanks for your help, both of you

[#5]

Well, it has happened. Now I cannot access the hard drive while it is C: drive on the pc, so I have installed a new hard drive, and installed Win XP on that.
As for the old hard drive, I have fitted it in an external hard drive frame with a USB interface. I can hear the hard drive spin up, but my pc doesn't report that it can see it. If anyone has any idea how I can get at this hard drive, please let me know.
Thanks

[#6]

You could always try the old freezer trick - http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html