Unfortunately, I made the very stupid mistake of not doing a "Repair Install". I should have know better, but I did it, and now I'm paying the price.
Is there any way to recover at least the data, and preferably everything, from the hard disk? I would even settle for just the data files, I can reinstall the applications, though that would be very time-consuming.
I have a good Internet connection on this new Win XP Pro system now, which was the reason for the reinstall of Win XP Pro. So, at least that is fixed now.
I have turned the computer off, so as not to overwrite any parts of the hard disk due to temporary file caches, etc.
I await anyone's advice as to what I can do. Thanks for your help. You can imagine how embarrassed I am