As I write this Im sat in the office with a colleagues PC running the system file checker in a corner of the room.  He owns a laptop, its getting on a bit now but still good, on which his copy of XP wouldnt start up.  He, like so many other people, hadnt backed up his files so restoring the existing system, rather than formatting and reinstalling was the only real option.

The tools Ive used for this are the recovery console and, as Ive previously said, the very useful system file checker.  Wi