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I'm no PC expert by any means, but heres an "If all else fails" way to save data until you get the prob worked out (if it comes to this).
Since you have a new HD that you were going to install; install it and set it up as the main drive at the BIOS level, set the current drive as a second HD as well as CDROM, etc - like you're building a new PC from scratch.
Install XP on the new HD fully, then unless there's a hardware problem, you should be up and running with 30 days till you have to "activate" the new XP install.
Transfer everything that you need to save from the old disc to the new one, then swap the old back to being the boot disc and tinker at will without fear of losing the important data. You'll have the 30 days before "activation" to swap these back and forth as needed to figure out what's wrong.
If the 60G disc is faster/newer/better than the current one, I'd set it up as the "C" drive with a fresh install of XP, set current disc as "D" (or whatever), reactivate windows in that configuration (not at all uncommom to do, you want your "best" drive to hold your OS anyway). Then you can clean up and transfer any data you need at your leisure until you get to the point that you can format the old disc and use it as secondary.
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