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Most recovery disk will format and reinstall Windows erasing all of your files. Some disk are XP with a Computer maker's brand name on it, like Dell's disk. They can be used to repair the operating system (IF) you are very lucky.
First thing you need to try would be going into the bios and load setup defaults, or system defaults. Your motherboard may have several ways of listing it, but the basic system settings are what you need at this point.
The reason for this, you mentioned irq settings and being in the bios and this makes me assume you may have changed something. Windows XP handles IRQ settings differently than previous versions. If you try to change the IRQ settings it will cause XP serious problems.
Using the F8 key while booting, make sure you try the last known good config, and all safe mode options, if there is no joy, and you have a format and recovery disk or onboard recovery system that just offers to format you will need to slave the hard drive to another machine and recover your files that way. HP/Compaq offer a non-destructive recovery option that just resets everything back the way it was leaving you files intact, but this is not foolproof, somefiles may be lost. The advanced options for the HP/Compaq will format the drive.
It would be nice to know the type of computer you have, and the type of restore it came with to much more help.
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