Just to put some kind of closure on the issue, sorted the boot thing by editing my boot.ini file, used loads of different freeware progs to try and recover my stuff got a lot back but the vital, vital, really would take these 2 gigs over the other 38 type vital illuded me. I got chatting to a friend and he had a similar problem some time ago and had bought some software because the freeware wasn't doing the trick so i put my drive into his pc he scanned (it took a few hours!) and there they were, my tunes and recordings I'd sweat over for hours! The program was called File Scavenger and was excellent it showed up tons more stuff the freeware didn't including stuff from 2 installations ago!! So I can heartily recommend this software well worth the money! The only thing it couldn't get back was my 4 gig sample library, oh well good job I bought them on CD!

http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm

Of course my thanks goes to Jephree for your time and advice, you are a gent sir, (if you are a sir of course!) thank you.