Windows XP boot error

[AdamEW]

While installing some theme for my windows xp I started getting all these crazy errors telling me that c:\Windows was corrupted but the program I Was installing came created a system restore point so I decided to restore my pc but on restart i have a message saying disk read error occured press ctrl+alt+delete to restart.. after trying pointlessly to restart it i thought I know I will put my windows disk in and see if I can repair it but uppon putting in my windows disk and booting it my screen just goes black! ..

anyone got any ideas of what I can do?
Thanks Adam

 

[AdamEW]

well Im very confused as to why my XP disk wont boot up I cant see how the hard drive could effect this.

 

[AdamEW]

sorry about that I guess I dont refresh my pages enough,

I have checked to see if it is connected properly and it seems it is as the bios is detecting it fine,

I read some of that post with the guy updating his bios but I doubt this will be the problem as it only occured after installing the theme package..

I posted on the steam forums , theres more info there

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=459098

(am I allowed to post that)

thanks

Adam

EDIT: my hdd is a western digital any ideas how i can completely format it ?.. this will be a right bummer as I have quite a few important files on my pc but if its the only way Im sure I can survive with a fresh install

 

[AdamEW]

thanks for the advise guys but in the end I just cleared the hard drive and installed linux which I will later delete with windows

yeah I wasnt sure wether to post it in the windows section or the hard disk section so i just went for general

 

[AdamEW]

what program did you use to partition your drives like that .. is it free?