Can't get to hard drive from dos boot disk or cd

[ScottinFl]

I'm getting  a corrupt file error when I attempt to start Windows XP. XP will not boot up in safe mode or any other selection. When I boot up from a dos boot disk or the recover cd (in command prompt from cd) I cannot access the hard drive. The local a-drive or b-drive are the only drive specifications that will work. This is preventing me from repairing the damaged file so I can boot Windows XP from the hard drive. Any help and or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

[GX1_Man]

What happened immediately prior to this. That could be helpful.  

What kind of DOS boot disk? What file system are you using on the drive?

[ScottinFl]

The screen got hung up while coming out of the screen saver. I pressed the power button to restart it and it never came up after that. Also my external modem was answering incoming phone calls, it's never done that before. I'm thinking I may have had a power surge but who knows.

I'm not sure what file system the wounded pc is using.

 I made the dos boot disk from my XP laptop by formatting a floppy disk with the ms-dos start-up disk option. The boot disk was fat (the only option offered).

[GX1_Man]

If this is a desktop I would reset the CMOS. If nothing else, take battery out for a few minutes, then restart. At this point we don't know if it is hardware or software.

Care to offer a computer or motherboard make/model, system specs, etc., rather than we just guess?