Went lights out just before my face hit the keyboard. I was a tad concerned for the non-bootable hardrive challenge — as I was running out ideas. The issues:

• normal boot – no chance
• last known good logon – no go
• safe mode w/without prompt – no go
• Recovery Console wanted admin password – huh?
• XP OEM disc clean install would wipe all – poor choice

Need a wizard. Support desk? Must sleep… Zzzzzzzzzzz.

A Google search in the morining AM sparked the idea to remove the HDD and slave it on another XP machine . Bingo. Data salvaged. The day saved, the faulty OS can now be overwritten, departitioned, formatted, folded, spindled, or mutilated! Now if I can only coax Norton Security to come back to life 😮