The C drive on my DELL P4 8250 gave up its ghost. I can't do directory listing of C: in recovery console and chkdsk -p gives unrecoverable errors. Hence I want to build a UBCD disk and see if I can restore my files onto the second internal drive (both NTFS). I have the original DELL reinstall CD for XP but how do I find out if it already has SP1 (I bought computer back in Dec 2002). If it does then I don't want to go through hassle of slipstreaming SP2 onto this.

The easiest way to check is by using AutoStreamer. Run AutoStreamer with your XP CD in your CD drive. Select "I want to use my XP CD" and click next. On the following screen it will tell you what build your XP CD is.

thanks,
I have downloaded all the files to build the ISO image and will do iit once I get home. I hope I won't run into any glitches.

Once it boots off the UBCD, I am hoping it will be as simple as copying "my documents" and other folders from the diseased drive to the other drive. I first built a knoppix CD and booted up. But it wouldn't let me access "my documents" as it had a lock on the icon. Then I ran into this program while googling. I am hoping I won't have this problem in a Windows environment.

If I can't access my files even after booting off of this CD, are there things I can try in some order to fix the C: disk? What freeware would I try to diagnoze and fix the disk?