Computer boots up but then goes into a loop

Hello,

HELP! I had posted my problem earlier, no help so far.


I have a 2 year old HP Desktop (Windows XP) with a Samsung hard drive. After a power hit, when I turned on the computer it asked me what method I wanted to use to boot up - Safe Mode, Normal, Last Known Good Config. I tried all of them and same thing happened. Welcome screen shows up and then it goes back to the boot up screen.

Running hardware test showed that Disk Test failed, there are some bad sectors.

The System Recovery option is available since recovery software is on the partitioned part of the Disk.

I have two concerns before going down this path. One, I will loose all of my files (some are backed up) and will it fix the problem?

Is there a way around this problem? I do have the backup software on DVDs. Can I boot up from these and try to fix the bad sectors or work around those sectors - plenty of capacity on my hard drive.

Thanks for any help and creative solutions.

Configuration: Windows XP
Firefox 3.5