XP won't boot, iPod might be messing it up?

[Vodoun]

So yesterday my computer was working fine, and I decided to listen to music through my iPod, which I haven't done in a long time. So I do, everything's fine, that's the only thing that I changed since then on my computer, but now it will get to the XP load and reboot my computer in an endless cycle of bullshit.

Here's a few notes:

A screen pops up right before it tries loading XP that says crap like, "Windows didn't shut down properly. This error could be due to hardware device problems."

For some reason my keyboard WON'T work on certain screens unless my iPod is plugged in.

I've tried using Windows XP repair, but it won't work at all, it just says that I need to delete my harddrive partition to install Windows XP on it.

I've tried disconnecting everything and booting to no avail.

Sigh, come the end of this I'll probably need to reformat. I'm fine with that, but I want to be able to salvage some back-ups.

[Vodoun]

Well, tried some stuff since yesterday.

Hooked up the harddrive to the computer I"m using now and right after it tried loading XP, it went to the blue screen.

So I tried plugging in the primary IDE cable to this harddrive, and the alternate to my malfunctioning harddrive and the computer wouldn't boot at all. So I tried connecting it after the computer had already booted and it just crashed to blue screen.

I tried booting from disc on this computer too, but it wouldn't even try really, it just kept doing the blue screen crap again.

So... right now I'm looking at any way I can salvage some backups from my harddrive. Do you think if I got an IDE>USB cable that I'd be able to back-up my files?