Boot failure & HD reboot only

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

My machine hung on a multiple file transfer from a USB drive to HD, task
manager wouldn't end it and I had to do a hard reboot, and now it won't get
past the blinking cursor on black screen that usually cues OS loading. I
created a boot disk according to article 305595, but the machine will only
try to boot to the hard drive if it is in the system, even with all BIOS boot
order options set to floppy. If I swap out the HD it will boot to floppy. I
swapped out main boards and got the same boot failure. The board is a
Chaintech 7VIL3 with Phoenix Award BIOS dated 2003. The hard drive is a
Maxtor Diamondmax plus 9, 80 GB ATA 133.

How can I get back into this drive? I'd rather not have to slave it on
another machine and try to retrieve data. Ugh! Oh - and does anyone know what
happened to cause this?

Any help appreciated.
Scenemaker