Disc seems to be dead after VMware install

[MrBohemia]

I have installed Mac OS X 10.4.8 [JaS AMD-Intel-SSE2-SSE3 with PPF1 & PPF2] on VMware through this tutorial. The goal was to have a bootable OSx86, not to have an OS running from VMware - I chose this way because my PC is a laptop (ACER Aspire 3000) and the disc and DVD player are in different IDE channels, causing the "Still waiting for root device" error.

 

I had windows XP installed in first partition and a second partition completely free - I formatted the second partition as Primary and FAT32. After installation macOS didn't boot. So, I had a GENIUS idea - format the partition as Logical and FAT32. Well, now when I turn on my PC, the light referring to accessing the disc doesn't turn off, and it doesn't boot at all. In BIOS the disc is recognized, I tried an Ubuntu LiveCD and it didn't find the disc; tried XP and Vista install CD/DVD and they just don't boot; tried Spinrite - don't boot; tried Hiren's Boot CD and it doesn't boot either...

 

Any ideas on how to "resurrect" the disc? Without open the laptop? I don't bother if I need to re-install XP, just need to save some files I need from there...

 

PS: I installed Acronis OS Selector like said in the tutorial, don't know if it influenced this result in any way...