Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

So I came into work on Tuesday morning and turned on my computer. Went to the kitchen and got some coffee. Normally in this amount of time I'd have a happy little prompt asking me for my user name and password. Instead I get this:

" Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
c:\windows\system32\config\system

You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair."

Hmmm, that sounds ominous. Well let's just turn it off and turn it back on and see what happens. Usually that does the trick. [Off] [Wait 5 secs] [On]. After a couple of secs, I get the same error. Hmmm, now it's a bit more ominous. Seeing as this is my office and not my home, and that we are much more organized here in the office than at home, I go searching for this magical 'original setup cd' that can cure my computer. Find it, stick it in, and....still the error.

GRRRR. So I fiddle with the boot order, chosing CD-ROM first instead of hard drive. Still nothing.

Eliminate hard drive as an option.

Still nothing.

Right, maybe of got the wrong CD. Try eight others and still nothing.

At this point, puzzlement has turned into despair. Now, I bet some of you are a little puzzled yourself. "Umm, dude it's your work computer. Score! Now you won't have to work." Theoretically you'd be right. But you see, I've had this work computer for over three years. I work for a small company who, unlike many companies, doesn't restrict what you can put on your computer. As I spend far more time on my work computer than I do on my home computer (not to mention the fact the up until recently I didn't have a home computer) I've put all of my music, legititmately downloaded and paid for over the past three years, on my work computer. Easily this is north of $1000 dollars (look, for me that is a lot and that is also separate from all of my physical CD's I uploaded). I think I have a plan to fix it, gonna take out the hard drive and see if I can recover it. Hopefully it'll work. If not, I'll cry.

PS. I have an iPod Nano, and almost all of the music was in 320kbps (16-20 meg) files so 99% percent is not saved on my iPod. So. Sad.