Need to recover OS but don't wont to lose data on HDD

Question

Dear All!
For the long time now, I was trying to disable a trojan or a worm, on my WXP (Home!) i.e. get rid of the cftmon_.exe, when I decided to follow the instructions from Symantec and manually deleted parts of the register, I guess that it was USERINIT part ( turning off the System Restore before and turning it on after the deletion).
It may be as well that I did not do something right, following the fact that I would be logging off the moment that logging on process has started. This is relatively known issue here, with different options.
- I need to keep data at both HDD's.
- I have no other partitions.
- I do not know what free space I have on one of them, which I could eventually use for the Expert recovery mode.
a. Following the fact that I want to take the option with Toshiba Recovery DVD, i.e. Expert mode ( http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=2513&tstart=125 ) as a last one,
b. I have trouble with installing Recovery Console (with original Windows XP CD (Professional!), "R" to "repair), but I would get the message "setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"...
I understand that I would need to install the RAID driver ( http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=20093&messageID=73758 ) but I am afraid that this may delete the data on the disk.
My questions are following:
1. Will installing the RAID driver (downloaded from the Toshiba off web site http://support.toshiba-tro.de/tools/updates/raid-drv/raid-drv-qog20-xp-1380.zip and installed over FDD I guess) in order to hopefully install Recovery Console, and do the rest of the job, make the data from my 2 HDD's disapear (delete)?
2. If I eventually use Toshiba Recovery DVD, i.e. Expert mode what size of partition should I save for the mirror on the half-empty 1.HDD?, should I make the partition at 2 HDD, after backing it up and counting that the data will be lost? Should I select any special setings during the process, apart from those mentioned at the link above? What should I do after-wards? Can I build the damaged registry when logged on and how? will I be in position to use personal and archive data from the Microsoft Outlook?
3. Is there an alternative with UBCD4Win and UBCD? Which one is better? What is the procedure after booting CD's after the restart? How do I get to copy/repear userinit files?
I do apologize for load of information, but I am quite stuck. All the data needed for my normal life are buried there !!!
Many thanks to JohnnyS, tw, Quad, Eldorado and Others!
Cheers!

Answer 1

Hi friend,
I like to answer on postings like yours, its a good exercise for my work and its really cool to have some topics where all people here will contribute.
JohnnyS is a friend of mine which is working with me at our office and we talked a little bit about your problem.
So his opinion was to use the UBCD4Win and work with that option.
The advice of him was:
Grab a USB-HDD case and put one drive in it and boot with UBCD4Win. Then copy all important data to a folder on the external HDD and remove the uneeded data on it. Just the important data!
Make a backup of your data on the external drive from both HDDs. I hope you will have enough free space.
Format the drive in your machine and recover it. Install the system as usually on your first HDD.
Then put the data to where you want.
So I am not sure if I understanded your question right, a little bit more explanation would be useful. I think that will be a long thread. ;)
Greets