7 steps to recovering a friends damaged XP 'puter

1. Ubuntu Live CD - OS of choice, but it refused to mount the disk
2. BartPE (PE-Builder) - Custom windows boot CD.
3. Active@ Partition Recovery - Told me it had a problem, just not what it was.
4. FreeDos - About as much use as a chocolate teapot.
5. Trinix - Could read the contents but not mount the disk.
6. RIP (Recovery Is Possible) - Not with this it wasn't.
7. Official Microsoft Recover Console - First time I've seen it actually do something useful!