2nd hard drive failed, pc won't boot up

Can someone make a recommendation for my situation ? I am running WinXP Pro and I installed a 2nd hard drive, I purchased 8.0 online, installed it. I used the Secure Zone option and created it on the 2nd hard drive. I created a complete image of my c drive in the Secure Zone. The 2nd hard drive has failed and the pc won't boot up. It hangs at "Verifying DMI Pool Data....". Apparently the MBR was modified by 8.0. Should I use WinXP Pro recovery console and run fixmbr? Can I change out the failed drive with a new one or will 8.0 still be looking for the Secure Zone? For the future, what is the recommended best practice --don't use Secure Zone (which takes away the F11 option); or? many thanks for whatever info u can give!