PC hardware forum: HARD DRIVE PROBLEMS PLEASE HELP!!!

Long story short. My c drive has a virus. AVG nor avast caught this one. it deleted both of those programs on its own. and every dowlad attempt was intercepted with "read error" codes popping up evertime. It hacked apart firefox. Renamed system folders to "systam" windows to "wendows" And deleted my config files.
Ugh just a mess. I was going to reinstall windows. just the windows folder. because I CAN NOT risk the lost of my precious personal data on this drive. In the process of installing the windows folder, not recovery console, cuz lets face it thats a laugh in itself. i renamed that folder "windows\1" and thought everything was going to be fine like times past. Well it isnt! my blue screen says "unmountable boot disk" when i start up.
Ive run active boot disk, gparted and others to view my files and data and to ensure they are still intact and ok. They are. My question is this, is there a way, program or command prompt to find and delete the \ from my windows folder? The blue screen always appears first. This situation would be ideal versus extracting and copying all my personal data in DOS mode which Im not so familiar with. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

its a dell dimension 4600c A09
1 gig ram
250g hdd
windows xp home sp3

its old but its a workhorse.
my focus here is the HDD not a new computer....just yet.