HELP!!!! windows update destroyed my system

I have a shuttle xpc sn95g5
athlon 64 3500
windows xp pro sp2 (all critical updates installed)
1gb ram
2 SATA Seagate hard drives setup in RAID 1 (mirror)

I have my windows updates set to notify me when updates are available.
Yesterday it popped up a message saying an NVIDIA update for an audio codec
was available.
Today I made the fatal mistake of installing it.

After the install it told me to reboot. So I did.
All it does now is infinitely reboot. It gets to where the Windows XP logo
appears (with the little bar showing load progress) and reboots.
I tried safe mode - can't get there - it just reboots after loading all the
files.
I tried disabling the RAID in the BIOS.
Still won't boot
I tried running a BartPE bootable win xp. It boots ok and tells me that
drives C and D do not exist.
I tried reinstalling windows without a reformat but when I get to the part
where I should have that choice it says something about the drives being so
corrupted that my only choice is to reformat.
I can't run the seagate drive test because it requires booting from a floppy
and the only floppy drive I have is USB and the shuttle refuses to boot from
there.
And I can't seem to see the USB floppy from Bart PE either.

Yes, I know I can reformat everything and start over from scratch but it
REALLY upsets me that an audio codec would completely destroy my system with
no chance of recovery!

And no, I hadn't installed anything else or done anything out of the
ordinary on the computer prior to this. When I arrive home today, I powered
up the computer and after reading email, downloaded the update. And that's
when it died. So it really looks like a silly little audio codec is the
culprit.

Is there any hope of getting my system back?????


.

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