boot sector f*ed

[PJ]

I just finished setting up 7.2 with all my programs installed,
configured & working fine with recovered files all working fine and just
as I boot up to start backing up everything... WHAM... the boot-up
kind-of hobbles and boots up.
I am called away from the computer and when I return - goodie, goodie,
there is a dump of some 177 mbs and the poor computer is trying to r
eboot... but that's it. And the
I scan the guilty drive and it's the very first, boot, sector that is
Baaaaaad. And the regenerator program doesn't go any further. :-(
Other than booting up with livefs and trying to copy everything to
another disk, is there something else that I should do?
I think it should work if I connect the drive to USB ...
But before, I thought I should listen to some sage advice... :-)
Anyone? TIA

PJ