I have a Dell and it only has one main drive volume.somehow file shdocvw.dll got deleted. now windows will start up but when I click my name to log on, a window pops up telling me "this application failed to start because shdocvw.dll was not found.reinstalling the application may fix this problem". my question is: when i go into safe mode command prompt can i open the recycle bin retrieve file and reinstall it? or is there another way.

Try booting to your XP disc and choose repair and boot into the repair conlose.
From the repair console run

chkdsk c: /f

When it's finished type
exit
take out the XP CD and reboot