so...being the idiot i am, i turned it off (held down the power button for 5 seconds) and when i went to turn it back on i was met by this problem
basically... it all runs as normal, i get the asus splash screen and then it goes onto how the pc was turned off unexpectedly and gives me the 5 option (safe mode, safe mode with command p, last know good settings etc etc)... but which ever one i pick, it takes me to the windows xp splash screen, blue screens for a fraction of a second with some white writing on it but i dont have enough time to read it, and then reboots the pc, taking me back to the asus splash screen then the 5 options of how i want to start the pc.
so... i figured, i have a second hdd on the machine (an IDE, my primary hdd is sata)... sooo, i booted up on that, loaded a fresh version of windows on it with the intention of opening 'my computer', virus scanning my broken hdd and fixing all my problems - but it does not appear under my computer
so then i got SCARED and was thinking that the hdd was completely broken an was not even spinning any more... so i unplugged everything and ran the hdd in my hand to test it and i can hear/feel that it is doing something and appears healthy... THIS IS A HUGE HUGE problem for me as i have 3 six thousand word essays due in on thursday and the only copy of them i have is on this hdd - so if there is anyone out there who has a clue of what to do, PLEASE, im desperate.
OS: windows xp professional sp2
(the rest of the rig is working as i was able to use the computer booting through a second hdd on a dif version of windows.)
ps, sorry aboyut my typing, doing this on asus eeepc and the keyboard is kind of small (and thats the reason i cant pay for the data to be recovered lol, just emptied my savings on buying this baby... PLEASE HELP ME SOMEBODY)