Urgent Help needed please - XP Recovery console won't!

Hmmm - a couple of months ago, I created a slipstream install of xp pro, with my sata drivers built in, and running xp pro sp2

all runs nicely for a couple of months, until today - when first drive in my mirror fails.

ok - no problem, thinks I -
I can use my recovery console to edit boot.ini and fix it so it boots cheerfully again.

but no.

why? well - recovery console is unavailable for some reason - and there's no way to access it - it's not available on my slipstreamed disc, and the original disc that i built the slipstream from, states that recovery console won't work a files don't match. Im currently building a side-by-side build on unallocated space (all 4 gb worth!) but it;s taking ages!
I'm writing this on an ultra-light lappy, with no floppy, no cd - and only a memory key.

Any ideas on how I can get a working sp2 recovery console to boot off a usb memory key? i can boot to dos, but don't have the 400USD to spend on NTFSDOS pro!

Scotty

whew... wipes brow with relief.
changed target boot drive, manually rebuilt evil boot.ini.
for some bizarre, unknown reason - d: (2nd partition) of raid was running as SYSTEM!!!
how screwy.
glad it's working - but it may be an opportunity for us to put our collective heads together and come up with a definitive troubleshooting guide! (not least - having a recovery disk)

I would have just used a DOS boot floppy or live Linux distro :)

had it running for maybe an hour.
looks like disk controller is stuffed - either that or two drives down the dunny.
can't rebuild primary partition (0) - but will boot and run on secondary.
nightmare - system halts at logon, and won't proceed, which is definitely not normal. rebuilding the mbr and boot section are giving me "a disk read error has occurred. please hit ctrl (... etc) to reboot" definitely not normal. currently running a surface scan to identify and mark all bad sectors... I've got 4 already on a 6 month old disk (which tested fine at raid installation about 6 months ago!)

bollocks to this...
am rebuilding my parallel install... is safer I think.

have repaired and manually rebuilt the boot sector. unfortunately, it locks up booting the desktop - so instead of showing the loading screen saying "now loading your personal settings" simply displays the windows logo for about 8 seconds - then displays a blue screen with mouse cursor. no keyboard response, no indication that anything is acutally happening.

anyone seen this before - very surreal?
Even worse when trying to run safe mode - clearly trying (and failing) to load device drivers, but simply flickers wildly with teh mouse in the centre of the screen. very, very strange.