Sorry to hear about your troubles, but at least you've got a new [to you] machine!
SP2 did the same thing to one of my machines - After I said 'to heck with it' and re-installed XP, I found out how I could have restored the dang machine without loosing my info (there are 5 files you need to copy from one place to another). I now make sure my backups are current, and I make use of the 'System Restore' feature
