Feeling a little daring today, are we 
You’ll be fine. As I mentioned earlier, a disk recognized by BIOS shouldn’t (hopefully) be too difficult to salvage data from if you can pinpoint the problem. I usually check the board once a day, so just drop a note here whenever you have a question.
Good news = Disks came yesterday!
Bad news = Disks didn’t work. 
I think I am raising the white flag of surrender. My last option is to send the disks back to my brother (with my hard drive) and see what he can salvage for me. At this point, the disk clearly has the upper hand.
Thanks to all for your help and responses to this thread. And if you have any last minute guesses (I can’t get to the post office until Wednesday) fire away.
Thanks again!
Alien,
No more ideas? No more last minute suggestions?
Are you all telling me that I’ve officially hit the wall?
Ah, crap.
With me, the dream dies hard.
Sorry :o
I read your message but I was in a hurry so I might have misunderstood. You said that “disks came” but didn’t work. I read that as a new disk (as in harddrive) sent to you but didn’t work, and that you were going to ask your brother to help you with the old disk. Don’t ask me how I came to this. So, was I wrong? Because on a second read I get the feeling that by “disks” maybe you are talking about the Windows CDs you have been waiting for?
Anyway, you said that your old disk still is recognized by BIOS. So, you need to boot with something. This is step 1. You WILL be able to boot with the following: any windows boot disk (win98, winMe, win200, winXP, etc) or Linux or whatever. Remember, to boot simply is to execute some code to get access to the hardware on a x86 based computer. Which should be good enough to probe the disk and use some of the tools previously mentioned. Whether you will be able to access the content of the disk, or do repairs (step 2), that’s another matter, - in your case you do need the proper Win XP cd, or the WinXP boot disks from microsoft.com. Maybe your brother can download the WinXP disks and send them to you by snailmail? Note, after downloading the winxp boot disk file (a single file) from microsoft.com, your brother needs 6 high density disks to create the boot disk set.
(since you had problems getting the 6 winXP boot disks from microsoft.com, the only other option I can think of is, if you can’t get to them at all, to download the single win98 SE boot disk from boot disk.com (to boot with), and the NTFS Reader program (to read winXP disks with, free) mentioned above).
Once you are able to boot you can take the next step.
You are now telling me all hope is not lost, are you? Well, if that’s the case, the first thing I do tomorrow (well after a couple of musts) is read your email and give it a go again.
You DID read it wrong. My brother sent the XP disks, not a hard drive. So, I will be trying this again. If it doesn’t work, THEN my brother gets the hard drive.
It may be the fact that I need the correct boot disks. I’ve downlowded the correct boot disk, but I didn’t get it together for a try. I will do that tomorrow.
It never ends… it never ends.
XP inhales if you are in New Jersey I’d like to offer in person assistance
Operating System not found.
Oddly enough, I can get this error message any time I want to.
I have to press and hold the power button on the tower for an extra second or two rather than just a simple press and release whenever I turn this box on. If I don’t, I get that message.
When I get that message, I just have to power off, press and hold, and viola!, I’m back.
Another way to guarantee that I will see it is if I just do the Start - Turn Off Computer - Turn Off sequence instead of using Privacy Erasor Pro to clean up and then shut down. If I use the Turn Off sequence, then I get the message every time when I try to turn it back on.
Weird, huh?
I hope I haven’t been too depressing 
As long as the disk is recognized by bios you will be able to get your data out. The question is how much work you are prepared to put into it. At the very least, with a correct boot cd/disks you can blindly issue the fix boot and fix mrb commands, which might solve it.
See if you can boot with something - anything - then try and connect to the disk. You can worry about the xp cd later, based on your result, or lack thereof.
And don’t miss out on MannyL’s post.