Need data recovery assisstance

[Drixoman]

Hello guys, I need some assistance in data recovery. My hard drives "quit" on me...okay maybe it's partly my fault... So one day I noticed my computer's Internet was connecting/disconnecting by itself a lot while I was using my XP. I have a dual boot with XP and 2k. I then restarted and boot into 2k to try to isolate whether the problem was XP only. It turned out it wasn't so I rebooted again to get back to XP, but something seem to corrupted the registry and it told me i am missing some file. I tried 2k and it broke too... (I could've use the proper to fix the registry but i didn't..regret skipping that.) Instead I took the suggest windows give and booted into recovery console (which i had no idea how to use) I used a older XP boot disk and went into the console. It is supposed to detect my system but for some reason it detected my 2k instead (which is D:\WINNT, my XP was on C:\) Anyway I didn't give it much respect and logon to my 2k. Of couse windows didn't tell me what to do in the recovery console so I tried "fixboot C:" under 2k. After that was done, I kept on thinking something wasn't right; so to my thought that when I tried to check my C: root drive, it display nothing (volume serial 0000-0000, no directories, etc weird properties.) Of course when I rebooted i end up given the message NTDLR is missing. This alarmed me as I couldn't find where is my file. I managed to check with hard rive using the windows setup program and see my partition was still there (however the amount of free space available was off). I have three drive (C,D, E) each is about 25 GB. I managed to recover my D and E drive with Ubuntu live CD but my C: partition structure seems to have been damaged and could not be access. I tried to use Testdisk 6.5 on Knoppix but was a bit uneasy of the possibilities of making it worst (I already made one mistake with the fixboot thingy) so I didn't proceed and right now my computer is just sitting there doing nothing. can anyone assist me in getting my file back (if that's even possible)?

If i posted in the wrong section please excuse me and feel free to move it to other section. (I asked in the dead machine and they said data recovery belong here?)

[another guest]

why not take da hd off from ur pc and hook it up to another pc run a full virus and spyware scan on it and then run a data recovery program to recover wuteva that was on c: drive ;)

[Drixoman]

I can't get hold of another computer right now; all I got is another laptop which doesn't support ATA cable. I would prefer if I can run the data recovery program locally since I can use my external usb drive.

[another guest]

hmmm how bout getting another hd and installing xp on it and give a shot at recovering your data...cuz you'll need a separate hd if you're gonna do a raw data recovery