Well, you could try a repair installation of XP and see where that gets you. I don't know if that will work, but at least we have tried something before you are forced to do what you don't like.
Did 2 of those sfc scannow tests, they ran all the way through, then shut down without saying a thing. Guessing that's good. Really don't know what's causing this so I'll put my stuff on my external harddrive and do a reformat tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.