PROBLEM !!!

[TC Lim]

Anybody encounter this problem? My friend's laptop
running the Win XP Pro has got a big problem. Not knowing
why but his laptop just can't boot. After checking, I
found out that the master boot record is not found. When
I inserted the Win XP Pro CD and try to boot from it,
harddisk space is reduced and the partition is not seen.
Because he got important info inside it. I'm not
formating until I'm sure. Anyway to recover the data? Or
shall I say to get the partition master boot record back?
I don't know what he has done but just trying to help him.

Many thanks.

TC Lim